Rockets-Lakers Game 6, Astros-Red Sox in Boston, Wild NBA Playoffs

Friday on The A-Team, Adam Clanton and Adam Wexler break down the Houston Rockets’ Game 6 showdown with the Los Angeles Lakers, preview the Houston Astros’ upcoming series against the Boston Red Sox, and react to the latest action across the NBA playoffs

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
What's Up, Houston.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Welcome into a Friday edition of the A Team Sports
Talk seven ninety soon to be on a Space City
home network, and before you know it, it's going to
be Astros and Rockets in action at the same time.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Just kidding.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Astros will get their game over with very very
quickly over on the East Coast, just in time for
the Rockets to start. I think that's how it's gonna go.
Probably how it's gonna go very little over overlaps. So
hopefully you are two for Friday if you're a Houston
sports fan, because it didn't get bitter bigger than this
until Sunday, of course, when Game seven is played. In

(00:40):
the meantime, Rockets Lakers back here in Houston. I've heard,
and I've talked to and I've seen all sorts of
people saying they have this feeling, that feeling. LA Radio
has a good feeling about the Lakers tonight, yet they're nervous.
Lots of Houston fans and lots of talking heads have said, ah,

(01:02):
the Lakers are going to play tight because Houston has
now placed doubt in their minds and Lebron looks old
out of a sudden and so the Rockets at minimum
are going to force a Game seven. I've seen it all.
I have no idea what to think about tonight. I
have no feeling one way or the other. It's funny.
When I was driving to Game seven between the Lakers
or becoming between the Rockets and the Warriors back in

(01:23):
twenty eighteen, I just had a bad feeling. I mean,
obviously Chris Paul was out, especially once I saw that,
Oh look, tonight's official was involved.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
But we'll start right there.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
When you heard that Scott Foster was going to be
the chief of the officiating crew tonight on a WEX scale,
which is always less than a normal human being because
you're a cyborg. How much did that affect you one
way or the other? One too less than one?

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Well, it did affect me quite a bit. I hate
when he officiates games because people are morons about him.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, that's the perfect we I sure.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Think it impacts what I think is going to happen
in the game. I just hate the fact that people
care that he's refereeing the game, so they waste their
time talking about it.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Do you hate it that they care waste their time
talking about it because you think they're stupid, or because
you think there are things about him that cause those
people to think and act that way, and so that's
why you're annoyed or is it all of it?

Speaker 3 (02:18):
It's it's I don't I've I never even do it anymore,
even in the days I work, I never look at
to see who's officiating the game.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, to be honest with you, I know who it.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Is before tip off because it's part of the job.
But it's a zero consequence to me.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I don't sit there and wait for it to drop
at eight am Central time so that I can see
how I'm going to feel one way or the other
about a game.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Like, people can't even say what they feel about this
game now that they know who the official is. They
just waste their time complaining about who it is. But
they don't even know what for well, complaining about what
because he's going to do what do you even know? Hey,
you'll make bad calls. Okay, I guess most people don't
think he's a bad official, but that is definitely not
Maybe some people is a better way than most.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Don't think he's a bad official. That dude.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Most everybody thinks he's a bad dude. Well, yeah, we
know that, but I mean that's a verifiable fact. It
would be nice to have a game that didn't have
bad calls in it. And I do think that probably
most people believe when he is the official in the
or some people believe you're gonna have bad calls. Were
six games into the series, we're five for five. There
have been five straight games with bad calls. This will
be number six. Yeah, No, bad calls happen in every

(03:24):
game in every sport that's not disputed. I mean there's
very rarely where you're like, oh, the officials were great.
In fact, nobody ever comes in to talk about that
type of officiating. But I just think that, like you're
a numbers guy, the fact that he was that Chris
Paul was zero for six in games he officiated once
upon a time, or the fact that that game seven
did take place the way it did, and if you

(03:46):
go back in.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
What's Chris Paul's record when he has nothing to do
with it, it stinks.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
No, I know, but Chris Paul has done what in
the playoffs.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
And he had run ins with Ken Mauer, so it
was hardly just a Scott Foster.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
I don't I'm not disputing that Scott Foster had was
he should have been. He should have been cited by
the league long before Chris Paul forced them to, which
was good on Chris Paul, especially since he was the
PA president.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
He forced the league's hand.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
He just made it all public and they all knew
he was right, and he had plenty of evidence to
back it up.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
So they had to hold meetings over this.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
It should have never gotten to that point, and they
should have never basically just been on the side they
were on automatically, Well, you're a player, he's an official.
Guess whose side we're on. It was embarrassing. So I'm
not going to deny that he didn't. He didn't have
to do a bad job with Chris Paul. But I
can't also ignore that Chris Paul's teams, especially the ones
that before he got to Houston, because he did have

(04:41):
some success in the postseason after he left Houston, not
with Oklahoma City and then ultimately yes with Phoenix to
a certain degree, but he had no success in the
postseason period before his run in with Scott Foster. As
a Rocket, he had nothing but playoff disappointment into space,
had little, if anything. I'm sure, he officiated did a
bunch of those games. Clearly you have the numbers on it.

(05:02):
But like we're going into tonight's game and I hate
you that this is topic number one. We don't even
know what it's, what it means.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
I think, is he a seri? Is the series going
to continue?

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Like? Did the league intentionally send Chris Paul's anti official,
Scott Foster to this game so we can get a
game on Sunday between the Lakers and the Rockets, or
did they say, look enough, Lebron, we thought you could
handle things, but apparently you can't. So we're gonna make
sure that we don't have to resort to a game seven,
and we're gonna go ahead and see if we can
just help push you through. First of all, neither of

(05:33):
those things are happening, but I can't deny that We're
on the air for the next three hours before the
Astros on Deck show, and people are going to think
what they want to think, and I'll be here for it.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
I'm not I'm not here for it.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
I will be here for it to happen, though, Gosh,
I listen, like I want to talk about boxing out
DeAndre Ayton. I want to talk about seeing if Reed
Shepherd can have a long stretch of great baths well
instead of this the two most important plays after he
got shoved in this series. Today, I want to talk

(06:06):
about the Rockets leading after the first quarter because they
made a bunch of shots. Remember this last game they won,
they weren't leading after the first quarters the first time
in this series the team leading after the first quarter
did not win the game for five for five on halftimes.
But if that can continue the things that they're starting
to do a little bit better, and quite honestly, talking
to the Rockets again today, Alprin Shangoun Jabari Smith Junior

(06:28):
was over his shoot around and target vibes. I mean
I'm not a vibes doctor. I'm more of a chemistry cop.
I try to police the kind of chemistry is going on. Yeah,
didn't visualize KD. They got done pretty early, so very little.
There are very few players even on the court. It
is a shoot around on game day and the sixth
game of a series. They're not going to spend a
lot of time on the court. Anytime they spent on

(06:50):
the court today at today's shoot around was more than
the Lakers. Lakers didn't even have a shoot around or
an availability. They'll be available before the game, but just
the way that the two of them were talking, and
having listened to them throughout the series, both when they
were down ZHO two and through them you know, getting
two three to two, they don't really view this series
as we couldn't do it right for three games and

(07:12):
then we figured it out for two games.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Far from it.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
I mean, Jabari was almost kind of checking himself because
he knew people wouldn't agree with or understand what he
was saying when he said it feels like an up
and down series because there's three straight for them and
two straight for the Rockets. But that's not really the
way that I think they see it. They feel like it,
and they've been saying it all along. We're doing a
lot of the things that should have produced victories, like
five of them through five games, but we just didn't

(07:36):
do this right in game one, make shots, same thing
in game two. We obviously gave the game away in
game three. The defense has pretty much been there throughout
in terms of how many points they've allowed the Lakers
to score, and so that's kind of how they see it.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
They see it. We gotta stay focused. We can't.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
They do know they can't make mistakes, and they do
know they're up against it, and they do know. The
one thing that's been consistent throughout is they have taken
care of the basketball a whole lot better than the Lakers.
And if the Rockets took advantage of turnovers as well
as the Lakers take advantage of turnovers, then this series
probably would be over already, and the Rockets are in
it because they just haven't given the Lakers that many opportunities.

(08:13):
Look at the runouts they had in the last game.
They weren't even off rocket turnovers, right, they were off
missed threes, and they get out. If you also have
turnovers live ball, the Lakers are going to run you
out of the building because that's what they like to do.
So if that one thing clearly has to continue, they've
got to be a cognizant of as they said, they
got to value every possession, and they've done a pretty
good job of that, even if it has resulted in

(08:34):
some twenty three point seven seconds elapsed off the shot
clock grenade shots in this series.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
There's been a few of those.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
You're so right about the missed threes because the Rockets
lack of proclivity in hitting them. For the most part
this season have been like, Okay, if you take this shot,
it's essentially, at the very bare minimum, going to be
a fast break opportunity for the other team. Now, that
was kurktailed a lot when Steven Adams was in there,

(09:03):
one handing offensive rebounds to keep that from happening. But
since he went down, it's been out. It's been a
lot more prevalent. And it's not like the Rockets started
making threes more as the season went on. They've been
mediocre most of the year at best at hitting threes.
They don't have consistent They don't have a ton of
consistent three point shooters at all. That's why Jabari Smith

(09:26):
Junior I think is the best player in this series
for the Rockets so far.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
He's the only guy that's consistently hit them.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Probably worth noting, as I'm sure you we're about to
their best most consistent three point shooter will probably have
another beanie and flannel on at tonight's game.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
That's true.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
Kevin Durant is a great three point shooter, which will
eventually people talk about when they're not talking about what
he does or doesn't do, or what his vibes are,
what his fifteenth phone is doing. They don't have him
in this series, and that that is a huge, huge
loss for obvious reasons. But yes, three point shooting is
gonna dip. When now you're you're only realistically good three
point shooter over the course of this season. Is read,

(10:05):
now you're only a good three point shooter in this series,
And quite honestly, in the entirety of Jabari Smith Junior's career,
he's still a better than forty percent postseason three point shooter.
Twelve games into his postseason career, and he's playing more
than twice as many minutes a night in this series
than he did last year in the seven game series
against Golden State, where he was on the bench for
way more than I think people remember. But in his

(10:27):
postseason career, short as it is, he has shot the
three point shot very well, better than forty percent. Obviously,
more of that is needed, and we look forward to
all the conversation about it. We will take you, as
I said, into the Astros on Deck show at five
o'clock in advance of their game against the Red Sox
tonight that'll be right here on Sports Talk seven to ninety.
You'll likely hear all of the Rockets game also on
Sports Talk seven to ninety, but it'll get started over

(10:48):
on News Radio seven forty KTRH with the eight to
thirty tip time.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
Again.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
The expectation on how long it takes the Astros to
man handle the Red Sox for a fourth time this year, well,
we don't know that yet, but that's how things we'll
go this evening. Got a bunch of guests lined up
for you this afternoon. On both of those fronts, it
is a streamed game this evening. On the NBA side,
they've got each of the three games sixes tonight.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Cassidy Hubberth is here in.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
The h I believe she has a car service taking
her where she needs to go. I don't think they've
booked a canoe, but she's going to join us at
two thirty.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Talked a little bit about this series.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
He was at Rocket shoot around as well earlier this morning,
and she is the court side reporter for the game tonight.
Chanlarome's going to join us this afternoon, as he usually
does in advance of the weekend, hitting a Friday appearance
we've settled in on four thirty for his appearance this afternoon.
I will also hear a little bit from Brian McTaggart
that will take place during the Astros on Deck show

(11:45):
and of course when he may u Doka Grace is
the station with a visit, which he did earlier today.
We'll let you tap into a little bit of that.
Also coming up at three thirty this afternoon, the Texans
held their press conference to reintroduce as he's all shire
really the extension press conference. They've now had a couple
of those. The Will Anderson won and now Aziza was
over there for that as well. So a couple of

(12:05):
interesting things about what he said about where things are
headed here and honest to goodness, from the heart stuff
from him about what he loves about Houston as more
specifically the Houston Texans, and then maybe we'll get into
why the Atlanta Hawks made everybody look bad last night?

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Come on now, game six? Are you kidding me?

Speaker 3 (12:25):
To the open of our show? I don't know what's
gonna happen in Game six. Just look at what happened
last night in one of the Game six is Oh
my gosh.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
We got lots to get to here on the eighteen.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Today, the eighteen on Sports Sports Talk seven to ninety.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
First of May, wex it's time. Yeah, four days out
from Sinco de Maya. Is that your favorite holiday?

Speaker 4 (12:50):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (12:50):
When it falls on a Friday or there's a big
prize fight, it's a pretty cool day.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Otherwise it's just sucks. Otherwise it's May fifth.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
All right, We will have Cassidy Hubberth join us in
the next segment to talk in all detail about this
series tonight and how the Rockets can continue it, extend it,
send it to LA for a do or die Game seven.
I lied in the first segment. I actually woke up
pretty supremely confident that that's going to be the case. Now,
did Scott Foster, being the crew chief cloud that somewhat?

(13:22):
Maybe a little bit, But you know, his reputation is
to be an extender. It's just that when he refs
a Rockets game, you feel bad about it. But aside
from that, I have long since thought from the time
the Rockets blew Game three and then came back to
win Game four, and I talked about this with LA
Radio this morning, like how the Rockets responded to the

(13:45):
way they lost Game three.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Like teams go.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Down O three all the time and they don't respond
or whatever, But like going down three the way they
went down O three and then responding the way they
did in Game four, that at least showed me something
about this team, which is interesting since all everybody wants
to talk about is how bad the vibes and the
chemistry is and how much kds a cancer in the
locker room and on all these dumb narratives we've talked about.

(14:10):
But I do feel like if nothing else is certain
in this series, they will extend it to a seventh game.
What happens in game seven where Lebron has all sorts
of fake legacy crap on the line that media makes up,
and how the league looks at that and all that
kind of stuff that remains to be seen. But that's
the thing we'll talk about that. We'll cross that bridge

(14:32):
when we get to it. I do think the Rockets
are gonna come home tonight and they're gonna take care
of business. And part of the reason is it's not
just that Lebron looks tired. I just think all of
the vets on the Lakers don't look great. They look
like they're worn down a little bit, and the Rockets
look like they've made some adjustments to some of the

(14:53):
things the Lakers were doing successfully earlier in the series
to get the lead.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that'll be the case.
The factor, clearly the Rockets are just flat out younger,
especially with Kevin Durant not playing. I mean, the three
guys that are out for the Rockets are ancient all
things considered. And you know, the Lakers are getting back
a twenty something in Austin Reeves for the second straight game.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
He's not even listed on the injury report.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
No word from the Lakers on what role they'll have
him play other than he's playing thirty five plus minutes
to night. I can pretty much guarantee you that whether
he starts or not, I don't know. He didn't start
the game in Game five, but he did start the
second half, and I think that probably is a precursor
to him likely starting the game tonight and having Luke
Canard come off the bench so they can get his
one point as a reserve instead of one point as

(15:33):
a starter.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
That's the thing.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
These three players, Marcus Smart, Austin Reeves, and Luke Canard,
all of them contributing in a big way in the
same game. It's pretty unlikely even if the Rockets do
things wrong, and it certainly did not happen in Game five.
You know, Marcus Smart had eight points right out of
the gate, and then he scored three points to the
rest of the game, which was triple the amount that
Luke Canard scored in the entire game. It all came

(15:55):
from Austin reeves, and it all came from the free
throw line. Probably not going to miss twelve of sixteen tonight,
but you'd like to think he's also not going to
get twelve points at the free throw line because he
only went four to sixteen from the floor. He's not
played four games against the Rockets, three in the regular
season and now one in the postseason, this one the
only one without Luca, but none of them were strong
offensive games for him. He had his best scoring game

(16:17):
against the Rockets while a lot in this Game five,
because he didn't score very well at all against If.
He averaged less than fourteen points per game against Houston
this season, mostly because he shot the ball very poorly.
I don't really buy into any age and tired stuff. Personally,
there's more than enough time in between tip off or
the end of the game and the next game for

(16:38):
anybody that's still playing in the NBA to handle it.
And again, this is only the second time in the
series they even have to play a game without additional
rest in between. Having a bad game doesn't mean you're old.
Having a bad game doesn't mean the series has worn
you out. When you get to game seven and guys
don't play well, I think it's a ridiculous, horrible crutch
like excuse because guys have bad game sevens all the

(16:59):
time time, and certain players have a lot of bad
game sevens all the time. They're not in this series,
though they're in the Raptors series for the other team,
the point Guard, I don't think those things will play
into it. The benches are going to be limited, rockets
are going eight deep out at absolute max, and you'll
probably see very limited minutes for any of the three
off the bench a Kogi holiday and dfs if they

(17:21):
don't show why they are out there and what they're
out there to do, and hitting four threes like they
did in last game would be a good way to
get a few more minutes. And the Lakers aren't gonna
go particularly deep. Boston Reeves comes in, and that meant
no Bronni James anymore. They really barely played Jared Vanderbilt.
They're leaning heavily on their starters, and it's no coincidence
to me.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
It's kind of the same. Both teams are in the
same boat.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
Does it matter that eight and is twenty seven and
Shngun's twenty three? Does it matter that Lebron's in his
forties and anyone you want to say on the Rockets isn't.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
It's just who they are.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
Lebron's gonna have enough energy to go out and help
his team advance in this game or in Game seven.
I don't think he's gonna look like he's playing old
in this game, just like I didn't think he looked
like he was playing old in the game he had
eight turnovers in. I mean the one where he had
eight turnovers and didn't score, because he had back to
back eight turnover games. But the only one that the

(18:13):
narrative was he looked old and was the one where
he also only went two for nine. He's thrown the
ball all over the place the entire series. It's not
because he's old. It's because this is what the Lakers do,
and you know, kind of a sign of some teams
trying to do more than they should do. We'll see
how the Rockets do the things they've done well, and
we'll see how the Lakers do the things that they've
done well, because that's who's gonna win this game. I
think almost nothing has changed, and I don't think anything's

(18:35):
going to change tonight either. You actually said before Game
five you thought it was going to be a very
low scoring game in the nineties, and I gave a
yech sound to it because I.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
Didn't want to see it.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
No, I wasn't pleasant to I wasn't saying you'd be wrong,
and you were dead on both teams defensively, probably liked
some of the things that they were doing. They probably
won team. The Lakers probably didn't appreciate the pace as much.
And I know the Rockets have said, let's go, let's
push it a little more. But these games have been
played more to their pace than to the Lakers pace,
and that's that's a good thing. We obviously have a

(19:06):
lot to get into on this very topic, but we
do want to give some time to our guests. We'll
break here and joined be joined by Cassidy Hubbarth, who
will be on the call tonight on the streaming side
with the group from Amazon. One of their three Game
six is tonight, so obviously they're all elimination games. The
Rockets in elimination games when they're head coach is emay Udoka.
Pretty awesome. Two wins this year, two wins last year.

(19:29):
Eighty percent winning percentage. Hopefully it goes up tonight.

Speaker 5 (19:35):
The age on Sports Talk seven on the eighteen.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
On Friday afternoon, Adam Wesler and Adam Planting here with
you talking a lot of Rockets Lakers already and we'll
do so over the course of the rest of the afternoon.
But also a pleasure to be joined by Cassidy Hubberth.
She will be the court side reporter this evening on
the broadcast. Amazon has the game tonight Amazon Prime and
each of the games in the NBA for the game
six is tonight. Cassidy, great to spend a little time

(20:00):
with you this afternoon, and we'll see you over at
the arena should we all make it over there safely
in this water later tonight. It's happened before as I
mentioned to you and the others said shoot around earlier today.
Hopefully it will not tonight though, But just curious as
you've prepared for, you know, covering this series and being
here for this game six, It's not very frequent that

(20:21):
you reach a game six in a series the way
this particular series has played out, the way the Rockets
have somewhat recovered again, they got a lot of work
to do, but recovered from losing the first three games
in this series against a Lebron James led Lakers team.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
How have you seen that this series play out?

Speaker 6 (20:39):
Yeah, I mean, look, we're starting to hear the rumblings.
People starting to talk about are we going to see
history the first team ever to come back from being
down three to zero. It's been an interesting series obviously,
you know, with the Lakers coming in down their two
you know, highest scores and then coming out like gangbusters
behind Luke Canard and Marcus Smart being this fire uh

(21:03):
for for that Lakers squad, reminding us what he did
with the Boston Celtics, so clearly they made a statement
in the first two games, and then that game three
I was on the sidelines for obviously, you know, you
you and all your listeners know that that game could
have went you know, the other way, and we could
be sitting here with the Rockets up three two and

(21:25):
looking to advance. So the series, Uh, you know, I
do feel like it it shifted in that that that
game three for the Lakers and the Rockets. Obviously, I
think big storyline, you know around the Rockets. You know,
he may making sure they watched all their miscues from
that game right after the game, read Shepherd saying, you know,
even though it was painful, it was it was necessary

(21:47):
in order to move on, and you know, calling them out,
saying that they needed to grow up. And I think,
you know, you're seeing the second youngest starting five and
in playoff NBA playoff history growing up before our eyes.
Without the future Hall of Famer and Kevin Durant to
lean on. They're leaning on each other and finding that growth. Meanwhile,

(22:09):
you know you have to wonder Lebron James, forty one
years old, what he was able to do in that
game three was absolutely miraculous. I had that postgame interview
with him, and I you know, like, even if you
are a Rockets fan, you had to be in all
what he was doing at forty one a.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
Little behind the scene there, Yeah, no question, like on
our end, do we know how it would be on
your end? Can you at least confirm that in advance
of the actual ending of game three you had already
worked out your postgame interview with a Rockets player totally.

Speaker 6 (22:40):
Well, here's the thing. Yeah, the way that it works
for me is that, like at the five minute mark,
I start writing out, like all the different scenarios. You know,
I had an LPI interview, and you know, I had
a blank Lakers interview just in case, but like you know,
I pretty much rip that up at the like, you know,

(23:00):
the minute mark, no one thought they were gonna come
back from being down six thirty seconds ago. So yeah,
but you wonder, you know, how how much of a
toll that took on Lebron and and and that group,
you know, one of the older lineups out there, and
now with Austin Reeves working himself back in the mix,

(23:21):
you saw kind of have an impact on Lukenard, who
was the story of the first two games. So you know,
I'm I'm saying all this to say, there's a lot
going on in this series heading into this game. There's
there's you know, the the cloud if you will, if
you're the Lakers of you know, making bad history, and
then there's the sunshine of Oh, I mean, we're watching

(23:44):
these these young Rocket stars kind of believe in who
they are.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Talking to Cassidy Hubberth of NBA on Prime obviously she
is a true professional because she just talked about all
the ridiculous storylines that are just in this series, and
it seems like we eat those up this time of year.
I think it's fascinating that depending on where the Lakers are,
whether they're you know, well, they've been leading in the
series the entire time, but you know, three zero versus

(24:09):
three two, that's how the narrative changes on Lebron And
then on the other side of things, you know, Kevin Durant,
the Rockets are playing better without him. Like do you
just sometimes sit back and think of like the NBA,
out of all the major sports, might have some of
the most ridiculous things said about some of these guys
and some of these teams as the playoffs get here.

Speaker 6 (24:28):
Yeah, but that's the magic, right, That's what we like
about the NBA because you get into the nitty gritty,
you know, like Obviously, the the NFL is exciting, and
it's like there's there's things going on with them every week,
but every The thing about the NBA is you get
to know these guys in day by day. There's there's

(24:49):
some new personality or some new storyline that you latch onto.
That kind of you know, get allows you to be
connected to this game in a way that you know,
I don't think compared to any other league. And you know,
you're seeing you've seen so much in this first round.
I mean, this first round for me has felt like

(25:09):
ten years. I mean, granted, I think also we had
the play in and the play and was exciting for
us as well. But there you know, we're having another
three game six is tonight. We're we're guaranteed a game
seven won at least one Game seven tomorrow, which you know,
the Celtics and Sixers like that, that's going to be incredible.

(25:29):
I mean, especially the way the Sixers are playing right now.
I mean, it was like a throwback. Paul George went
back in time and Joelle Mbian he just had it
appendeck to me.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Just sixteen days.

Speaker 6 (25:41):
Ago, You're in Houston talking about here, yeah, and here
in Houston. It's it's it's yeah, it's it's quite quite
a remarkable that's what they say. It's where the playoffs happen.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
Well, and I think, just to follow up on that,
you mentioned it. You know, these young Houston players being
able to kind of get back off the mat. It's
not just that they went down three, it's that they
did so in the fashion that they did. And I
think if you're questioning the chemistry around the Rockets right now,
I don't know that a team with bad vibes or
whatever you want to call them necessarily responds that way.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
But that's just my theory sitting here in Houston.

Speaker 6 (26:16):
Yeah, I mean, look, I had a chance to catch
up with Alprin Shingun this morning and also Jabbari Smith,
and those two guys have taken on a real leadership
role and you know, they're they're they're they're making sure
that they're this team believes because they believe, because they're competitors,
both of them, they're ultimate competitors. And you know they're

(26:38):
I think they're they're relishing this this leadership role that
they have right now to show show the world that
you know, they're for real and that they should be
taken seriously. And and then you can't say enough about
a men Thompson. I mean he's leading the league and
playoff minutes, both him and a Sar. I mean that
Thompson family. Whatever their parents did, they like, sign me

(27:01):
up for their book on parenting because they are incredible,
incredible young men who are true professionals. And it is
just a joy to watch a man. I mean he
is like I like, I can't even explain his his bounce.
It sometimes doesn't even look real out there on the court. So,
you know, I think this young core is is a

(27:22):
reason why there's you know, I think a lot of
talk around this team because there's so much talent and
so when there's expectations or an understanding of, you know,
the prospects of a collection of players, there's obviously going
to be some disappointment if they don't achieve what some
people believe that they can achieve. But there, you know,

(27:44):
the season's not done yet, and there's they're trying to
prove that. You know, there's still time to show off
their their talent.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
Do you think there is any issue for the players
because we talk about it, you'll talk about it the
broadcast ours yours. We'll both talk about what could be
history in the making. But there's no Game seven unless
the Rockets win tonight. You and I both heard Jabari
Smith talk about that this afternoon, that they're not even
thinking about game seven. You know, they're focused in on tonight.
They got the task at hand. Do you think it

(28:11):
is at all hard for the players to go into
a game six having won the last two trying to
They're not trying to make history tonight. History comes down
the road only if they win tonight.

Speaker 6 (28:22):
You know, look, you and I are job. We need
to have those kind of lines in order to, you know,
like get people's attention. It helps with our conversation, right,
But I do I believe them when they say we're
not thinking about that because they can't. I mean, they
have to think about their job. We're thinking about our jobs, right,
We're thinking about what's the good what's the good one liner,

(28:45):
what's the big overall arching storyline? I think they'll think,
you know, I think the Lakers and the Rockets will
think about it if we're going into a game seven.
But I believe Jabari like they have. They have to
focus on winning this game and what what all that means? Like,
you know, the adjustments are going to make you know,
with Austin Reeves now starting the game, him having you know,

(29:09):
another day of rhythm, how that's going to change what
this matchup looks like because it's going to be different
from obviously first you know, three games, four games, and
so what's that going to look like? So I just
think there's so many details that even us we can't
we can't possibly understand because we're not in that locker

(29:30):
room on that team. But I believe Javari when he
said they can't focus on that. But it's fun for us.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
To talk about, right absolutely, And given all the givens,
I won't straight up ask you for your prediction about
tonight because that just that would be terrible.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
But what do you how do you what kind of
game do you envision?

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Like the other day I said ninety six to ninety two,
and it wound up being ninety nine ninety three Like
it was. It was a lower scoring affair, just the
age you mentioned with Lebron, the Rockets being back at home,
the momentum on their side. How do you think tonight's
game plays out? Just the style that we see.

Speaker 6 (30:05):
I don't know. I mean, obviously, the one of the
hardest games to play is a close out game, right
but now this is the Lakers like second opportunity to
close out, third opportunity to close out. So I you know,
I'm not I don't. I don't expect a Nicks Hawk's

(30:27):
situation to them. That's good, that was insane, insane, But
I you know, I don't. I don't know. That's I
think I want to. I think I need to go
to the arena tonight and I gotta see. I gotta,
you know, interact with some of the players, some of
the coaches and kind of gather, you know, what the

(30:48):
teams are feeling for me to really know what to
expect tonight. I think that's where we're at right now,
Game six. I think both teams know what's at stake.
I you know, I think both teams understand each other,
and so I think we just got to hit the
ball up.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Well.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
We've had a great chance over the years to get
to know Jeff Van Gundy. You got Stan Van Gundy
with you on the broadcast tonight. We have had both
Iron and Noah Eagle on the show over the years.
Recent years in Noah's case, and now we've got a
chance to get you on. Here is this broadcast team
you're coming to town with tonight.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
Have you had fun with.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
Them the best?

Speaker 6 (31:25):
I mean, they are incredible. I mean you said you've
gotten to know Ian. He's one of the most wonderful
partners and the funniest person in the world. He makes
me laugh every two seconds. And Stan has been such
a treasure.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
For my career.

Speaker 6 (31:44):
I mean, no one has made me feel more welcome,
more part of a crew than he has. And his
preparation is unlike any other analysts I've ever worked with,
and so it's been really quite a enriching and wonderful
experien and so far my first year prime.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Isn't Iron Eagle getting into it with Mike Frattello one
of your favorite YouTube videos of all time.

Speaker 6 (32:09):
It's unreal, it really is. He's you know, his father,
Iron's father was a well known stand up comedian growing up,
and you're like, oh, now it all.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Makes sense right, Well, Cassidy, we appreciate you taking the time,
especially in the middle of a busy series and a
busy schedule for you this time of year.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
Thanks so much, and let's do it again soon.

Speaker 6 (32:28):
Okay, have fun tonight, guys.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Absolutely, Cassidy Hubberth of NBA on Prime. She'll be in
the building obviously tonight, as they've got the game. We'll
be there as well. I think pretty much everybody in
the city is gonna be watching that game. So we'll
react to some of what she had to say and
wrap up the two o'clock hour when we return next city.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
Hubbirth didn't suck.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Great interview here on the A team Sports Talk seven ninety.
I wanted to ask her which one was her favorite twin,
since she's obviously well versed in the Thompson twins. But
you could tell she was being very diplomatic about how
the Dame the game was going to go tonight. Got
to get over to the arena, got to see how

(33:08):
it feels. You think I'm not even kiddy when I
say this. I know you think that I'm saying this
for effect. You think a daylight today with this kind
of weather affects one or either team or have you
ever thought about that with athletes? It can affect people's moods.
It's a scientific fact.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
One can.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
But they're rolling into the arena hours before the game,
going through a normal pregame routine, which to me is
exactly why none of the outside personal things could affect
them that we probably don't know about or even read
Shepherd playing game five he was sick.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
We didn't know that till after the game. Yeah, you
wouldn't have known either.

Speaker 3 (33:40):
But if anything's going on in their lives that maybe
we would not otherwise know about, or maybe we would,
that might impact them. But the day to day stuff,
even the you know, the sleep situation. We got in
at four am. We've got a seven thirty game. But
things like that, I think they're able to go through.
They have routines for all of that. You know, we
we're not gonna have shoot around today, So be it
the arena at this time, and so they're there at

(34:01):
four thirty, five o'clock, five thirty, whatever time it is
for a road game at eight thirty or in the
Rockets case, a home game at eight thirty, I think
once the arrival at the arena has taken place, especially
if you it was an abnormal ride, like well that
fifteen minute ride took thirty five minutes or whatever the
case may be, I think going through your I'm at
work now routine, which is several hours long before an

(34:23):
NBA game for the players.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
And the Kush League. This game, you're just not worrying.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Well, it's the same amount of time they're not. They
arrived before tip time, the same amount of time.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
Arrival over there after the show tonight, which I think
you're going to do too, of course I am.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
We're just going to sit around a whole lot longer
than we would have, just like.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
I did for the last game. I did this for
a game.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Technically you stood around.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
I did stand a lot of them. I knew I
would be sitting a little bit later, yeh. I hovered
over my seat for quite some time.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
But yeah, I just just wonder about that kind of
stuff because it is I mean.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
They might be wondering if the weather is if they're
being told the weather is really really really going to
be something, then maybe it gets in their heads about
what they're doing after the game.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, because we meaning we you me, Matt Thomas, Dwight Howard,
among others, were all trapped for a long time inside
Toyota Center during a ridiculous storm after a playoff game
against the Warriors.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
It was insane that night. At least they won.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
Yeah, after the Hawks and Nuggets were eliminated from the
postseason last night, the league has pretty much set up
the schedule for the remainder of the postseason through the
conference semifinals, I should say, And even for the Rockets
and Lakers, there's contingencies on that, as in, if this
series goes six is still a possibility that would mean

(35:42):
a Lakers victory tonight, But if it goes seven, they
got the contingency for that. The Rockets know that their
next series is essentially going to be very difficult to
navigate from a rest and travel standpoint. If they win tonight,
they forced a Game seven, so they leave for Los
Angeles play Game seven. It will be Sunday night at
a TBD time. If they win that game, they got

(36:04):
a game two days later in Oklahoma City, and then
there's one day off in between games one and two,
Games two and three, Games three and four, Games four
and five before they would get an additional day off
however long that series might go. And ultimately the same
is true for the Lakers. If the ghost game seven,
that's all there is to it. So that's I don't
know if travel could then start to get in their heads.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
I wouldn't think so, because the.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
Game has you can let that happen, just like Jabari said,
this afternoon and we'll play that for you.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
You're not thinking that.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
They really do have a good It's part of why
they are able to do what they're able to do
in these games, and especially in basketball. They're not thinking
about what's going to happen Saturday, Sunday or Monday or
in Cancun. They're thinking about tonight's game.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Entire ninety five championship run was like just how you described.
There was no time they were They went the distance
in like the first two series. Of course that first
series was five games instead of seven, but still the
point remained. They were in Phoenix like forty eight hours
later and had another game two days after that. I mean,
it's that's just what you're saying is exactly right from

(37:04):
that standpoint. This is just like a busy part of
the regular season schedule. They just happen to mean a
whole lot more.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
Yeah, they mean everything.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
So well, we'll get you more into that quite obviously,
looking forward to what we have in the three o'clock
hour for you. Email Udoka visit coming up at three
point thirty and get you set again for the remainder
of the Astros road trip. They're coming off of a
win heading into three with the Boston Red Sox.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
We get into that next.

Speaker 5 (37:30):
The eight.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
We are ready the uh, the skids are greased for
Game six tonight over at Toyota Center. We will row
our way over there after the show. We've got Astros
on deck coming your way at five o'clock. The Astros
are in Boston to take on I don't know, we'll
talk about this in a little bit. Which is the
more disappointing or worst twelve win team in the American

(37:54):
League right now?

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Boston or Houston.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
Those two are gonna gets well, they're not playing in
this series. Only two teams get to play. That's the
main reasons. Plus, they have the best pitcher in baseball. No, seriously,
it's true, they really do. So I don't know if
they qualify just because of that.

Speaker 7 (38:10):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
They also have like one of the best players that's
not as good as dude.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
What a freak show.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
I mean, I did love the fact that on the
call yesterday, Todd Kallis says, and that's gonna lock up
the American League Player of a Month Award.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
Well, he was third in homers in the American League
for the quote unquote month that includes all the games
from March until he hit that homer.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Then he was tied for first.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
Aaron Judge and Munataka Murri Kama were not on the
ball field yesterday, so he had a chance to catch
them with his twelfth home run, and he did that.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
He's ridiculous though, because it wasn't just I mean, had
another hit later in the game he was.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
I hate that it's being wasted. I hate it right now.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
It's just I knew it was going to end sometime
this championship contention.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
I can say that.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Let's not like ignore the elephant in the room, but
I just the fact that he's playing this way and
they're a twelve win team here on May first, gross,
I hate that.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Yeah, they can't have it fall any more than it
currently is, and considering they've been off on the road
this year, the win yesterday and the second game of
the doubleheader was only their fourth road win of the year.
If they can't at least keep it where it is
until Jeremy Pania comes back three series from now, gonna
miss this series, probably gonna miss the Dodgers series, but

(39:32):
possibly you could see him back after that until Josh
Hater comes back, which might not be long after that
until Hunter Brown's comes back. Also might not be much
longer than that if you get good pitching from your
enormous outlay of cash investment in Tatsuya Emi, and that
could be one startaway. He's gonna make a second rehab

(39:53):
start according to what Joe Spott has said yesterday, to
be determined, and then hopefully if things go much better
that one, maybe he is back and hopefully pitching like
you wanted him to, and that can't happen. Yesterday was
evidence of that. A Lance McCullers junior now has two
very good starts for the Astros and Era that's not
very pretty, but they gave him a five to nothing

(40:14):
lead before even threw his first pitch, and he pitched
like it easy through the first three innings of that
game yesterday, and then once the Astros had a ten
to nothing lead, he got into a little bit of
walk trouble and that has been a problem for the
entire pitching staff. So a couple runs came across, they
had no issue winning yesterday's game whatsoever, when they had
those many, many runs being scored, big home run in

(40:36):
the first inning to turn a little bit of a
nice start to nothing into a blowout situation. Potentially, Cam
Smith hitting that three run homer in the first inning
was huge, and again they played at on the rest
of the day. The next time jord On Alvarez came
up to bat, he hit a solo homer. The one
we're talking about is the American League leader in home runs,

(40:56):
major league leader as well. Twenty seven runs batted in
leads the American League. His slash numbers all lead the
American League. It would be pretty surprising if even off
a twelve win team, and it usually doesn't impact awards
for months or weeks regardless. Yes, this was the best
player in the month in the American League, and he's

(41:16):
there sometimes left fielder. He played left field yesterday and
he didn't get any hits in that game, and then
he went back to DH that a three hit game
in another home run. I'm almost willing to bet a
number of like fifteen. The Astros are twelve and twenty,

(41:37):
so they have one hundred and thirty games left. H
He's gonna play left field fifteen times or less this year.
And it just stands to reason, what's he doing? He's crushing?
Why is he here to crush? So they don't want
to play him out there. They told us they didn't
want to when the season began. And then the injury
God says, hold my beer, this outfielder's out. This outfielder's out.

(42:01):
That outfielder's out. Myers low Berfido Tremmel all unavailable, and
Joe Spot and Dana Brown said, and and we'll pick
up Daniel Johnson and will pick up Dustin Harris and
will make Bryce Matthews an outfielder. Your run's not playing
outfield very often this year. He's not gonna play outfield
very much this year, very infrequently.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Not to make this even way worse than it would be, like,
could you imagine if they didn't have yord On right now?

Speaker 1 (42:26):
Uh, then they wouldn't have two other people either. What
do you mean?

Speaker 3 (42:31):
They wouldn't have Joe Spot and they wouldn't have Dana Brown.
Oh okay, I think I think they would be say
six and twenty six. Do you think your manager and
your general manager would have been fired?

Speaker 1 (42:40):
I mean, that's how good he's been and.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Again I'm not even saying he won them this game.
Ere he won them that game. But yeah, holy cow,
the pressure it takes off of the opposing pitchers not
worrying about the only hitter they really think can hurt you.
Now Christian Walker actually can hurt them this year, and Altuve, Correa,
Perettis now who's on a bit of a heater, and
Cam Smith was certain extent, they've done more than enough.

(43:01):
This is a very good offense. What does it look
like with Jordan on out there? Last year's offense not
nearly as good.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
I was, man, That's why it's upsetting that they are
somewhat well somewhat.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
They had to get four wins this series. This road
trip still a possibility. They just have to repeat their
feet from earlier this year when they swept the Red Sox.
The problem is they're now trying to do it on
the road. They're going to get a major league debut
posing them on the mound tonight. Jake Bennett's just getting
called up for this start. They're possibly seeing nothing but lefties,
which should bode well for them. What they do in

(43:36):
the third game of this series is a little bit
up in the air. And you know, you just hope
that in the two pitchers the Astros are throwing for
sure tonight and tomorrow. The stuff's been there all year.
Clearly it's been there all year for Spencer because he's
won three times. They won each of his three starts.
I think it's been there for Mike Burrows and all
three of his starts. He just has not been able
to make his way through innings like a probably a

(43:56):
much more experienced twenty twenty eight version of Mike Vere
would be able to do. There are some growing pains
with a young pitcher, and as much as there we
kind of hyped up the addition. And I loved the trade,
and I understand why they made it, and it's I
thought it was really good, and I love this stuff
and they should too. But the more you pitch at
the major league level, the better your mental side of
it is, and I think better your execution is. I

(44:18):
think he's been lacking on both of those fronts, and
a lot of these games, you have a perfect game
into the fifth inning, you get the first two outs
of the fifth inning, and then you can't get out
of the fifth inning because five straight batters reach.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
I do like the fact that you skipped over the
twenty twenty seven season for Mike Burrows because no one's
gonna have a season that was I don't think I
didn't catch you.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
Talk to Mike Burrows joining us here on the A team.
It's April fifteenth, twenty twenty eight. For those that don't
know Mike, how'd you feel like you handled things in
twenty twenty seven?

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Well, what do you mean?

Speaker 3 (44:48):
Well, how did you and your family handle things in
twenty twenty seven?

Speaker 8 (44:50):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (44:50):
You me and my family.

Speaker 3 (44:51):
Yeah, because we didn't play any baseball, it was fine,
you know, hung out. You know, I tried to work
out often. You know, I tried to keep my arm loose.
Talked with my agent and some athletic training staff people,
not with the astros because we can't talk to them,
but just people in general.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
What's a good idea, What's what's your best plan.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
You've got a lot of experience in keeping major league
pitchers ready over a twenty month period in between starts,
So what would you suggest?

Speaker 1 (45:16):
And so I went with some of those things.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
Like we're going to be having that real conversation with
like ninety five percent of people that we see on
a semi regular basis, whether they're on the field, off
the field, coaching broadcasters.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
Unless than semi pro baseball league gets formed.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
Okay, in More League Softball, that's great.

Speaker 3 (45:41):
Mike Burrow's throwing underhanded over a Constellation field. Jim Crane
doesn't own that team anymore. Maybe they could host some games,
get Jordan playing some games.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
They loose, stay.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
Fresh MLB, So the Sugarland Skeeters are gonna have mad
sellouts if the Skeeters come back. Yeah, maybe whatever Space Cowboys.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
I think it will be interesting to see what does
happen to the minor leagues, because it is it's not
as easy as you think, because of ownership like this
is new, like up until six months ago, Jim Crank
did own this team.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
He did own the Double A team. They were his.
They were his teams. They currently are not. Why to
get rid of them?

Speaker 2 (46:20):
I don't know the answer. I don't know the definitive
answer to that. I wonder if you know how much longer? Well,
I'll leave that for another time. We got better things
to discuss. One of them, obviously, is Game six tonight.
Scott Foster, he is the crew chief. And again I
told you about talking to LA Radio. They're nervous, by

(46:43):
the way they went on the record as saying it.
They're just very nervous about tonight. They also think the
Lakers are going to find a way. But all it's
about is is Lebron flipping that proverbial switch while at
the same time they're saying he's tired, looks old, et cetera,
et cetera.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
All they are is LA Radio, who you talk to
saying that mm hmm okay, because that means obviously they're
around him more than the morons on national coverage, so
that's a little different.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
No, these guys you could tell from the jump, and
this is the second time I've been on with him.
I came on with them just before the series, and
then I came on again today.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
They're I mean, they're there. They do what we do.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
Maybe not from the affiliation with the Lakers team standpoint,
but they talk about it every day.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
They watch to get they're not They're not Kendrick Perkins,
for example.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
Just I mean, it's totally different than you know, Kendrick
Perkins goes on TV every day and is paid to
be outrageous. That's what television programs like his are, so
I could hardly blame him for saying what he says,
but I kind of doesn't have to be true, but
it's what needs to be said by people like that.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
I kind of turned things around on them, and I'm like,
do you feel good or bad this Scott Foster is
involved because.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Most people think he is the extender.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
So I'm like, well, maybe you should feel goodf you're
a Rockets fan, you shouldn't get us so upset even
though they are one in nine in the last ten
games he has officiated in the playoffs for them.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Who is the Rockets in which one of those games?
It is probably one of those games. He did a
game last year, one or two.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
I think he actually officiated a win against the Warriors
last year, so that's the one.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
That's the one I think.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
So in other words, mister semantics sitting next to you
would say the Rockets has currently run are one to
zero in the playoffs when Scott Foster is the official.
I don't care what they did when James was here.
I care what they did when Jabari was here. I
don't care what they did when Mike D'Antoni was the coach.
I care what they did when he made was the coach?

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Could I just say that, what if the Rockets organization
had submitted a video of him specifically officiating their games.
It's the same official no matter who was on the roster.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
But the jerseys are different. What do you mean, depending
what they wear?

Speaker 2 (48:43):
It might be not familiar to the red ones tonight
that they wore in that series against the Warriors.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
And which I'm running out of excuses.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
They were the black ones, I think when they lost
Game seven, as I recall when they missed twenty seven
straight through you No, I think.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
The basketball will probably determine it more than the officiator.

Speaker 7 (48:59):
Hope.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
I sure, hope. So we will continue this discussion. In fact,
you mentioned it something from the NBA playoffs last night,
some things, plus a discussion about Boston or Houston being
the worst twelve win team in the American League, at
least in this series, not to be confused with the Angels.
All that still to come here on a Friday edition

(49:21):
of the program the.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
Eighth Rockets and Lakers.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Later on tonight, you mentioned this briefly in the last segment,
or actually it was brought up during the conversation with
Cassidy Hubberth as well.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
I look the Hawks record setting.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
That was just I was eating dinner last night and
I looked up and it was like forty five to fifteen.
I think, I'm like, what is going on? Like did
they not get off the team bus? And then later
I see what happens with Denver and Minnesota, and I'm like,
I don't really know, Like I know who had a
worst night, because the Nugget were actually expected to do

(50:01):
something maybe this year, not losing the first round. But man,
I don't know who had a worse night. Just depending
on what you're talking about, what aspect you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
Yeah, I would say nobody's ever gonna remember exactly how
bad it was years years later. But everybody here remembers
the Rockets lost by forty, so people are going to
remember what happened. They weren't expected to win the series.
Both of the games they won were nail biting one
point victories. They got manhandled in many of the other games,
not quite to the length it was last night. The
better team beat them up. Just over the course of

(50:31):
the series, they were the much much better team, and honestly,
the Knicks come out of it probably thinking what they
should be thinking we can win the East, and the
Hawks probably would have never been thinking that even if
they managed to show up for last night's game. It
was near, you know, record setting stuff. It was the
second largest margin at halftime in any NBA game, All
sorts of playoff negatives put on the table for a

(50:51):
team that was you know, they're better, and they made
some very good moves over the last couple of months
to put their roster better together than it was at
any point when Trey Young was there. And I know
they advanced once with Trey Young, but they're young with CJ.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
McCollum.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
There's an opportunity for them moving forward to bump into
the true upper echelon. What happened with the Denver Nuggets. Yes,
as you said, a thousand times worse. They were without
Peyton Watson for the whole series. They were without Aaron
Gordon last night, while the Minnesota Timberwolves were without Anthony Edwards,
were part of this series, including last night, without Dante
da Vincenzo for part of this series, each of the

(51:26):
last two games, essentially with his achilles injury happening in
the first minute of that game, and then their series
savior Ayudsumu, who had scored forty three points in one
of their victories, also unavailable last night, and they just
came out like we don't give a bleep and watched
this and Terrence Shannon was rocking Rims and Mike Conley.

(51:47):
I turned the clock back maybe a year or two,
and the reason why they were even in this series
was on display.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
Again.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
I don't often offer apologies, so I won't to offer
one here, but Rudy Gobert was freaking off awesome in
this series.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
They won the series because Rudy Gobert.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Are they the one team that can give the Spurs
matchup problems because of him?

Speaker 3 (52:08):
I don't think he's going to be able to defend
Wemby in the same manner, So I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
I wish I had a better answer because they're both French.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
By the way, this is true, just the way Jokic
goes about his business is so dramatically different. Everything is
about body weight and leverage and positioning and spinning and
you know everything.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
And that's just Wemby doesn't do that.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
You know, he's probably he may be more willing to
take shots, but when he's you know, when when Jokic
a pump fake at you from the three point line,
you barely even react to it. The shots over his head,
what are you going to do block it? Rudy's not
going to block his shot. Wemby probably the same thing,
but he is going to try to quickly drive by you's.
He plays like a wing who just happens to be
seven foot four. So I do think it's a very

(52:52):
very different matchup, and they're also healthy, unlike Denver. Denver
is in a much different situation if those two players
are playing. But I was really surprised, curious if you
were last night, and I don't know everything that Chris
Finch said. I was too busy, you know, focusing on
the program here to four today. But he said, absolutely,
we use this as motivation. He believes that Denver chose

(53:16):
to play Minnesota. We were talking about it the very
same way here. Three, four, five, and six were all
unknown seeds. We knew the four teams were, but we
didn't know what the matchups would be. The Lakers had
just lost Luka Doncic and Austin Reeves. You know, the
Timberwolves were getting closer to locking in the sixth spot.
The Rockets had visions of passing the Lakers. The Nuggets
could have fallen behind the Lakers even going into the

(53:37):
last two nights Friday and Sunday of the season, depending
on how things played. We were curious, is this the
night where Yo Kitchen Murray sit or are they gonna wait?
Are they gonna play hard against San Antonio? Are Oklahoma
City and San Antonio gonna play hard against Denver? Because
they've already sewn up their spots? So there was a
lot at play. But Chris Finch was just point blank

(53:57):
saying it they chose us, they chose to play us,
and we use that as motivation.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Do you agree with him? Like I'm saying, I'm like,
how does he know that?

Speaker 3 (54:08):
How does he know they chose to be the third
seed because it's better than being on Oklahoma City side
of the bracket, It's better than being the four seed.
It's I mean, there's the Lakers are involved. Do you
really like, I don't think they could have gotten to
the Lakers. Did they care about playing? Was he really
just saying they chose us over Houston because that's really

(54:30):
what they were choosing between dropping to the form playing
Houston or staying at three and playing Minnesota.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
I think.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
It's more of a surprise as as far as who
it's coming from. This just isn't Chris Finch's thing. He
didn't do this before this series. Because of their playoff history.

Speaker 3 (54:48):
There clearly was a rivalry, a good basketball postseason rivalry
that I hope continues. Absolutely positively want to see Minnesota
and Denver playing the postseason. Actually with Anthony Edwards at
this point, well, in this their rivalry is not with
Anthony Edwards.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
It was with Everydo McDaniels. Yeah, he could not stop
and he could not stop backing it.

Speaker 5 (55:08):
He was awesome.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
His mouth was awesome, his play was awesome. He led
this team in this awesome to have another awesome game tonight,
even though what he said is way less inflammatory and
he's not even inflammatory.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
He's in a minor league ballpark in terms of inflammatory.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
Daniels was like, here's what I'm gonna say. You will
do nothing about it, and we're going to advance.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
They don't play defense, Yeah, Nikola Jokic, Cam Johnston, he
just named the ball by names. Who are you going
after all of them? They don't play defense. Jabari Smith
Junior said I think we're the better team.

Speaker 8 (55:40):
Right.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
He didn't put it on the bulletin board, by the way.
He went up to each one of those guys you
just named and slapped them in the mouth.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
All right, you got a weigh in on this. I
was over at Rockets practice today. I didn't really run
an experiment, but it basically got played out on social media.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
The experiment. No, it played out.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
I don't need anybody to play us out with our
new album, or at least a cut off of it.
Jabari Smith Junior was asked a question. Luis Ortiz of
k h o U Channel eleven asked him about you know,
the tide is turning here. You know, you know you've
got to you know, how do you feel, how do
you handle things? You've got a chance at history now,
something that nobody's ever done, you know, coming back in

(56:20):
a series like this and in a game seven. And
he answered it this way, And listen very closely to
what he says at the beginning, what he says at
the end, and maybe more specifically, what he says in between.

Speaker 9 (56:30):
Oh yeah, we won't think about I won't even think
about game seven right now. We just think about Game six.
We think about tonight. I think about doing the things
that we gotta do to win, put on the show
for our fans, represent the city. Well, we not think
about game seven. We'll think about it tonight when we
got to pack our bags, but we were not.

Speaker 8 (56:45):
Think about it right now.

Speaker 9 (56:46):
We've worried about game six, worried about the task of
hand and and uh yeah, we're worried about tonight. We're
not thinking about game seven yet.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
I don't see anything wrong with that. That's why I
asked Cassidy about that.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
She was standing off to my right when he said that,
and she said, I I truly believe what he said. Now,
I posted this just like I did the other day
with Jabari and pulled out some of the quotes. Didn't
want to write out a five hundred word post on
the X platform, but I gathered a few of the
things he said, which you just heard. I didn't mention
everything that he said, others that posted it did, and
that's the one. Those are the posts that got picked

(57:19):
up by all the same people that picked my stuff
up the other day, you know, NBA Central and hate
a Report and everybody else out there. To make sure
to highlight this portion of what you just heard Jabari say.

Speaker 9 (57:30):
Not think about game seven, Well, think about it tonight
when we got to pack our bags.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
But I mean think about it tonight when we got
to pack our bags. Well, he's saying, he's saying clearly,
I'm sitting here today at ten forty eight am, and
I expect to be packing my bags later tonight for
a trip to Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Yeah, goh, he's gonna be packing his bags either way.
They're packing his bags for the off season. You've been
packing his bags for packing up his line. Yeah, I'm
sure he'll use a bag of some sort. Yes, But Jabbari,
that's like back to back non stories that people are
trying to make into something right and and keep.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
There's a few things that play here in the postseason,
especially with availabilities. The Rockets most talked about player is
not talking.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
He's hurt.

Speaker 3 (58:21):
Injured players don't talk. Reed Shepherd will do a post
game because he had a game, and so he'll do
the postgame. You know, most of these other guys also will.
And then it's on us or the LA media if
they happen to be at any of the Houston availabilities.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
They were not today.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
We get who we asked for, or we get who's available,
who can make it work. Well, we're getting the same
guys every day. Jabari is being asked for now, So
Jabari's talking every day. They're playing eight guys. We're not
asking for Aaron, We're not asking for DFS, We're not
asking for Josh, We're not asking for a men every day.
He's not quite as good of a SoundBite as we

(58:57):
don't really ask for Reid Tarry Easton not he then
this is over the course.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
We'll talk to him much during the regular season primary defender.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
But we also got seven minutes from him in postgame
the day before. So Jabbar has been asked for every day,
so he talks every day. So he's being asked about this.
So every day somebody's had something to run with.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
Yeah, we got his head coach to hear from.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
We do, and we'll hear from him next.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
A replay of a portion of his conversation with Matt
Thomas Ross Virial on the show preceding ours about tonight's
Game six. Obviously, but what went right in game five?

Speaker 1 (59:33):
All of that? One other thing also coming up.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
I want to send you guys out to see the
Astros next week against the Dodgers, so I've got details
on that coming up top of the next segment, before
our conversation with Ime Udoka.

Speaker 5 (59:48):
The eight on Sports Talk seven nine.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
On the eighteen X and AC here with you's we
have ready for the weekend. But before that games this
evening here on Sports Talk seven ninety news ready KTRH
with the Astros here the Rockets there, though you can
catch the Rockets game on both networks, most likely in
its entirety with the split in the game time tips.
Before we get to the conversation with Email Udoka, I
wanted to give you some details and why I need

(01:00:14):
you to listen up closely here and listen up closely
in half an hour at the top of the four
o'clock hour, because that's the payoff on the giveaway to
get you a pair of tickets to go see the
Astros and Dodgers Tuesday, May fifth, because Budweiser is turning
one hundred and fifty years old part of the one
hundred and fiftieth anniversary, I want to give you two
tickets to go see the Astros. Now I have multiple pairs,

(01:00:35):
we'll give a few away today and the will remainder
away on Monday during the A team, So we'll get
a couple of winners today and we'll sit together and
hang out for Budweisers one hundred and fiftieth anniversary Tuesday
May fifth, Astros Dodgers that game in the evening after
we wrap things up here on the A team, And
all I'm gonna need from you to do is listen
up here and I'll tell you what to repeat back

(01:00:56):
to us there at four o'clock one hundred and fiftieth
celebration anniversary for my friends over at Buddheiser Anheuser Busch,
I had an ad campaign television side. Their national TV
spot was entitled Great Delivery. Award winning spot. Oh you
might have seen it, Great Delivery. Remember that. I'm going

(01:01:17):
to ask you that at four o'clock what is the
name of their national television spot on the one hundred
and fiftieth anniversary Vanheuser Busch and Budweiser four o'clock Great Delivery?

Speaker 7 (01:01:29):
Remember.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
Let's hear from Ima Udoka Rockets head coach as he
begins the conversation about what changes, if anything, after winning
the last two games.

Speaker 4 (01:01:39):
That's confidence obviously building, but you know we had a
let down at the end of Game three and looked
at a lot of the positives and you know, really
had a dominant three quarters outside of the finish, and
so there was a lot of good to look at,
a lot of things that we knew we did well
enough to win and carry that over the game four
and five, and so now, let's shoot it.

Speaker 8 (01:02:00):
Numbers have come back around.

Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
We're still defending at a high level, and so confidence
is high.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Confidence is high.

Speaker 10 (01:02:05):
Also, another nice thing has happened in the last couple of
games is you've not allowed one of their scorers to
have great first period of play.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
Was that a focus?

Speaker 10 (01:02:13):
You know, look it's forty eight minutes, but man to
see guys like Canard or Marcus Smart have goals great
first quarters were certainly alarming in the early parts of
the series.

Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
Yeah, we looked at the first three games and giving
up thirty three, thirty three, and thirty nine in the
first quarter and being.

Speaker 8 (01:02:29):
At a small deficit most of those.

Speaker 4 (01:02:31):
We wanted to get out to a great start and
started with Game four, you know, being up twenty six
to twenty two, and then last game we didn't score
a ton, but we held them in the twenties, so
we wanted to get off the better starts, and we've
done that lately. Smart came out hit a few threes
and free toes, but outside of that first eight points
in the first quarter, he ended with eleven, so did
a much better job with him. Canard only have one

(01:02:52):
part one point, and so much better focused on those
two guys.

Speaker 10 (01:02:57):
Is it okay to say you'll luck deanre eight and
do what he needs to do and getting those two
point shots if it comes with the fact that your
perimeter defense is better. I mean, obviously you want everybody
to be stopped, but can you live with DeAndre doing
what he did and not allowing guys like Canard and
Marcus Martin and Lebrono a small or extent to hit
the bunch of threes.

Speaker 4 (01:03:16):
Yeah, I mean, every time you go into a game plan,
you want the ball to find certain guys more than others.
And even if he's making some of those shots, we
don't feel that can beat us at a higher level,
and keeping everybody else contained is pretty much part of
the game plan, and so we're gonna live with some
of those, especially with the opera and helping on some
of the drives and we feel we can contain the

(01:03:37):
others will be in good shape.

Speaker 10 (01:03:39):
Austin Reeves got in there, and as you and I
were kind of joking about a little bit, Austin's gonna
get to the free throw line. He certainly did a
bunch thirteen times. That's kind of his modus operande. But
what did you notice from the game plan of the
Lakers with Austin out there, as compared to some of
the minutes that Luke canar was taken from him before
he came back and being healthy for them.

Speaker 4 (01:03:58):
Well, they run a lot of the same plays with
those two, so the actions weren't much different. But he's,
you know, a better one on one player, and to
your point, getting to the free throw line it's a
big thing.

Speaker 8 (01:04:06):
So they tried to bring read.

Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
Up into some actions with him, I think outside of
the fouls and us going under two pick and rolls
where he got three point shots.

Speaker 8 (01:04:15):
We did a good job funneling him inside.

Speaker 4 (01:04:17):
I think looked like he got worn down this game
went on, and then we made him work on the
other end, and so obviously one of the best scores
all year. What he's done is taking a big jump.
This year, and that's why they've improved, and they're going
to try to get him his actions, get him to
the free throw line, and we got to do a
better job of our fouling.

Speaker 11 (01:04:33):
And one of the things, of course, you kind of
mentioned what the turnaround is the defense, especially with reed
Shepherd and outprenching Gooon. What have you been seeing from
those two guys, especially just from a competitive standpoint and
being up to the challenge to improve their defense.

Speaker 4 (01:04:48):
Yeah, taking all the challenges is the first part, and
just being more physical in general. You know, we were
putting them on certain matches and they're doing a good
job out and specifically putting out some fires guarding his man.
And like I said, we're living with some of the
eight and things that are going to be residual effects
of that. But for the most part, they're doing a
really good job. Obviously, if you hold a team dow
under one hundred as many times as we have, especially

(01:05:09):
ninety three and ninety nine in the last two games,
you know you're doing some good things.

Speaker 8 (01:05:13):
And so still areas we can clean up.

Speaker 4 (01:05:15):
We took a look at that today where you can
even improve more. But defense is filling our offense the
turnovers are great, the activity is great, and they're a
big part of that.

Speaker 11 (01:05:25):
Rocket Tech coach Immaydoga with us here on Sports Talk
seven ninety. What's the latest you can give us on
Kevin Durant and trying to work his way back, of course,
not going to be available tonight, but potentially for game seven.

Speaker 4 (01:05:38):
Yeah, he's still going through the process and you know,
getting some work in and seeing how it feels.

Speaker 8 (01:05:43):
You know, the mobility and.

Speaker 4 (01:05:44):
The pain are two different things, and you can probably
push through some pain at times, but if you're limited
with your movement and some of the things you can do.
As far as him being the score that he is,
it's going to be tough. And so as much as
it sucks for him and us, know, other guys have
stepped up and we have to go with who we
got and so looking at him obviously out tonight, we'll

(01:06:06):
see what happens the next few days.

Speaker 8 (01:06:07):
But you know this, bone bruises are tricky. You know,
it takes some time.

Speaker 4 (01:06:10):
And he looked at Marcus Smart earlier this season missed
nine games due to a bone bruise and the healing
process of one thing. But like I said, the mobility
being limited is much more impactful.

Speaker 10 (01:06:20):
Reid has the mid range shot in the fourth quarter,
he comes back and steals Lebron's attempted pass, winds up
going for a Duncan mill of the lane. How much
in reading and grow up and that just that stretch
with those two big players were such a big part
of that fourth quarter.

Speaker 8 (01:06:35):
Yeah. Huge. Obviously they cut into the lead.

Speaker 4 (01:06:38):
We had missed some good shots as well, but we
knew that the coverage they would have with reading the
pick a roll as opposed to I'm in or somebody else,
and so he got the space to operate instead of
good screen, had to get set up and got to
a spot and so we touched him with that shot
all day. Obviously one of the best shoots we have.
But the instinct to go make a play as well
on James driving, he's really good at that got great

(01:07:00):
and anticipation and to push us back up to seven.

Speaker 8 (01:07:03):
At that point was obviously needed.

Speaker 4 (01:07:05):
But hug for him, just growing experiences, like you said,
first time really playing in a heated playoffs series, and
so great to see him come through at that point.

Speaker 3 (01:07:15):
As em noted there, and I'm sure most of our
listeners recall last year's seven game postseason series against the
Golden State Warriors really did not include Reed Shepherd. He
did not hardly play at all in that series.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
And so this is a much different situation Jalen Green.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
That was mean, it included him enough that he had
one amazing game. It's it's interesting, and just because you
brought it up, you want to sidetrack us. So Jalen
had an awesome game in last year's postseason, absolutely incredible,
new and it doesn't even matter because his other six
games were so bad. And this year he had two
incredible games in the post suit regular season portion of

(01:07:55):
the NBA's calendar. But go look at his reference page
and find out until me what he did in the
two playing games that he played in. Good luck finding it. Honestly,
do you think that's care seventy one points in their
two playing games.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
We're gonna, okay, we're gonna react to some of what
I may had to say, but I brought I had
this conversation with.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
Someone else last night.

Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
I'm gonna ask you the same question I asked them
about Jalen Green as it pertains to the Rockets and
all this kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
So we'll do that when we return here on the eighteen,
the eighth.

Speaker 8 (01:08:28):
I was.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Having a conversation with someone in the last I'm gonna
say forty eight hours. Everything kind of runs together after
yesterday's weird day with the Astros doubleheader. But I was
I basically came to this conclusion and I'd never really
thought about it this way. And I want to see
if you agree with me, because we were talking about
Jaalen Green last segment. Did did last season's playoff loss

(01:08:54):
to the Warriors in seven games in the first round
and his performance in set series? Is that what ultimately
got Jalen Green traded from Houston?

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
Or was it just as simple.

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
As Kevin Durant was available and that's what it took
to get the deal done?

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Or is it both.

Speaker 3 (01:09:13):
It's a little bit of both, but it's mainly the latter.
I think really, if his series was exactly the same,
and you know Phoenix was not lying when they said
he's not going anywhere, then I don't think the Rockets
are he doesn't get traded.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
If what Euanus was available in one of the teams
he mentioned he'd go to is Houston.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
It's the same scenario in other words I.

Speaker 3 (01:09:33):
Mean, then I would have to say the only reason
he got traded was because a future Hall of Famer
still playing at a high.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
Level was available.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
So I can keep the same answer.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
Yeah, that's a good, very good way to do it.
Yeah they're not.

Speaker 3 (01:09:45):
It's why I said just yesterday I thought they were
gonna win win situation.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
I don't know if I think that now.

Speaker 3 (01:09:50):
But keeping the team as it was, making minor typical
offseason moves or making a big move and you know,
upsetting the core.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
I don't mean that in this sad in a sense.

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
I mean not keeping it and making a move to
try to become better and try to shoot for a
championship and Land one of the best players that's ever
suited up, Land, the player who I called this very
week the best shooter of the basketball that's ever played
in this league. And he's a rocket right now. He's
an injured rocket right now. But that's why they made
the deal. Do you think he's better than Steph as
far as a shooter?

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
I sure do.

Speaker 2 (01:10:20):
Wow, why wouldn't I? He makes more of his shots,
So it's just about the amount of shots made versus
the percentages and all that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
Well, No, I'm not saying a volume of shots. I mean,
look at where he.

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):
He's taken way less field goal attempts to get to
his place on the all time scoring list than that
factor's in for you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
Is that what you're saying.

Speaker 3 (01:10:40):
No, I think people all these years have been flooded
with confusion about Steph Curry because he has made some
unbelievable pressure shots. He's had an unbelievable career, He's had
an unbelievable postseason career, and he hits shots that essentially
nobody that's ever played the game before hits. Nobody's taking
twenty eight foot the most important moments of the games.

(01:11:01):
He takes them all the time, and he makes them
all the time. He also misses a lot of them.
But nobody else does it ever because they can't. So
I'm not trying to take away from what he's done,
but they have been confused by that to think that
the numbers say, oh, yeah, he shoots forty three percent
from downtown. Everybody knows that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
What's his career shooting percentage from three? I'll keep it simple.

Speaker 3 (01:11:22):
The last several years, age thirty four to where we
are today. For Kevin Durant, including this year with Houston,
He's a forty two percent three point shooter, fifty three
percent from the floor, fifty eight percent on two point
shots just the last three years, like while he's been
old is dirt.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
Sorry Kevin, Sorry Kevin, that's mean.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
But you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:11:43):
So we'll take Steph Curry same time period, if you'll
allow for that. Now, let's just take his last several seasons,
you know, twenty twenty two through today. It's you'll be surprised,
I think when I finally get the numbers for you.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
But what do you think? Who do you think has better? Well,
it's clearly Kevin Durant. I don't know numbers are I'm
just sure of it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
Well, the numbers you just rattle off for Kevin Durant,
just the three point percentage alone blows me away.

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
Right, People don't understand how good he is at doing that.
So Kevin's numbers were twos fifty eight threes forty one
point six overall fifty three percent. Steps two's fifty two
point six percent threes forty two point two, so point
zero point three percent higher, and overall forty seven point

(01:12:33):
one fifty percent of that number point five worse.

Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
They're basically the same guy.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
No, Kevin's better. Well, but it's not like astronomy about.

Speaker 3 (01:12:44):
If I just combine it all and give you their
effective field goal percentage, Kevin's at fifty nine point three,
at STEP's at fifty eight point two.

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
Kevin is better.

Speaker 3 (01:12:52):
That's it. That's all I'm trying to say. He's better
of a He's a better shooter of the basketball. My
definition of that, yeah, is taking a shot, a jump shot,
a set shot, not a layup, not a drop in
from two feet away, not just any shot where it's
basically a jump shot, a shooter of the basketball.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
To me, in order to definitively say that, because everything
you just said, there's nothing that you said that you
didn't back up with numbers. And in addition to describing
the types of shots the Steph takes and that kind
of you know, weighs into the lore and all that
kind of stuff. I guess in order for me to
just definitively say Kevin Durant's a better shooter, I would

(01:13:31):
need more separation than a ense of a percentage.

Speaker 3 (01:13:34):
By the way, I was so impatient with that, I
didn't even wait for the actual numbers that I tried
to pull to pop up. So those were actually Steph's
career numbers versus just Kevin's last three years, which aren't
the best three years of his career. Well, Steph's numbers
are worse, slightly worse during the last three years. But
if you want me to give their career numbers, I could.
I'm really not going to bore our listeners with it anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
This is my position, Waring.

Speaker 3 (01:13:58):
I think it's we're quibbling over it, but it's not
who one of them is not known as that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
Right and the other one right here, Kevin Durant is
never ever listed as that. He's you know what, he's
listed as. Oh my gosh, look at how efficient this
guy gets his points. Nobody ever says this guy's the
greatest pure shooter or one of the top five greatest
pure shooters of all time, and they should apparently. I mean,
it's not like he's thirty, He's thirty eight nearly doing this,

(01:14:25):
and I would absolutely argue that he's more effective at
his age, because well, Steph just sat out for another
chunk of the season.

Speaker 3 (01:14:33):
Yeah, staying healthy is a hard one to kind of
put on one or not the other. They've both had
season long injuries over the course of career.

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
Only one of them has missed like how many years
of postseason a lot? He just didn't make the playoffs
in xyz years. I'm sorry, Like, that's that's where I
start getting upset about people saying that Steph is the
all time greatest or he's a top five player.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
Get out of here with that top five players.

Speaker 3 (01:14:58):
Again, Just don't they do it though, Use lists that
we know don't need to drive.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
Talking about recency bias from people who are X age
below that don't know their head from their ass.

Speaker 1 (01:15:09):
And that's the only way I can put it, because
that's what it is.

Speaker 3 (01:15:11):
But up until you brought that list to our attention,
well that was a different list. That's what I've never
heard anybody call Steph Curry a top five player.

Speaker 1 (01:15:18):
I mean, I'm he's the.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
Greatest time and I've got just as big a problem
with that because Magic Johnson walks that out.

Speaker 1 (01:15:26):
Isaiah Thomas is a better point guard than him. Come on,
I mean, I'm not on Isaiah side on that one.

Speaker 2 (01:15:31):
When you don't even lead your championship team's plural and
assist Draymond Green does you cannot be called the best
point guard of all time no matter what kind of
trick shots you make.

Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
If you care only about assists, and that's part of
your definition of a point of a point guard, though
I don't agree.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
Facilitating the offense. How's that does that make it?

Speaker 3 (01:15:50):
You're also picking out like this one little tiny semantic
used stat like what do you think Steph's You're making
it sound like Draymond had nine asses per game and
stuph was.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
Well, you're making it sound like Kevin Durant shot it
from fifty percent from the three, and it Steph's out
shot it from forty.

Speaker 1 (01:16:05):
He's a career six and a half assist guy per
game over his career decent. He's not even crying ball.

Speaker 3 (01:16:11):
But while he's doing that, he's putting twenty five points
on the board, Like he's not Isaiah Thomas. It definitely
didn't have a better career than Steph.

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
He's one of the all time greats. He's not the
greatest point guard of all time, no matter what you say, dorks,
I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:16:25):
That's just like I'm not even gonna that's I'm not
gonna hear it.

Speaker 3 (01:16:28):
Well, he was not in this year's postseason. We should again,
we should have already stopped talking about him.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
Well, what do you count hill next year? Do you
count playing games as postseason? I just some people do.

Speaker 1 (01:16:39):
I just defined it already.

Speaker 3 (01:16:41):
You can't find the numbers that he produced in his
playing games on his basketball reference page unless you're looking
at a game log. Maybe because they don't exist, because
they don't count statistically.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
Is they're not playoff games. And I know we they're
playing the game. I know he got into it on this.
This is why I hate the plan. It's a participation
trophy for being the worst of the best of the
bad teams in a conference.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
That's all it is. Here, here's your extra game or two.

Speaker 3 (01:17:05):
Stick around top of the four o'clock hour payoff on
the tickets to go see your Houston Astros. If you're
listening at three thirty, you know exactly what I mean
and exactly how I can send you to go see
the Astros. Thanks to my friends over at Budweiser.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
That is next on the A team.

Speaker 3 (01:17:21):
We got baseball coming your way in an hour as
we get you into the Astros. On deck show in
advance of Astros Red Sox first of three games tonight
and tomorrow, and then the Sunday getaway day. We got
Rockets basketball for you tonight and hopefully on Sunday that
game for the Rockets will start over our news radio
seven forty k t RH. You'll be joined as soon
as our Astros coverage is complete here on Sports Talk

(01:17:43):
seven to ninety, and then you can listen in both locations.
Obviously game six tonight for the Rockets and the Lakers
over toy at a Center, MT and AC on the
call be over there as well and get you inside
the building so whatever else is going on there, some
celebrity attendees, anything else that might happen there, and certainly
postgame coverage and we'll have it all for you. Ross
will handle both pre and post on the local side,

(01:18:05):
so he'll be on the other end of it taking
your phone calls as he has been throughout this entire series.
Very much looking forward to what the weekend has in store.
And if you're listening half an hour ago three thirty,
I told you I wanted to send you to go
see the Astros and Dodgers coming up on Tuesday during
this upcoming homestand evening game over at tik and Park
thanks to Budweiser. Hook me up with a couple of

(01:18:26):
pairs of tickets to give away to you today. If
you're listening at three thirty, you know what I'm going
to ask for here now at four, we'll open up
the phone lines at seven one three two one two
five seven ninety so you can give me that answer
and win those tickets.

Speaker 1 (01:18:39):
On the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary.

Speaker 3 (01:18:41):
Of Budweiser, they launched a new national television ad spot.
I've had some pretty good ad campaigns over the years,
very memorable ones. This particular ad spot launched yesterday and
to celebrate their one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. I asked
you to tell me what it is called that particular spot,
and I told you what it was half an hour ago.

(01:19:02):
We'll do something similar like this on Monday to get
the rest of those tickets in your hands for Tuesday's game.
But if you know the answer to that question, I
appreciate you listening. We like our listeners get rewarded. You
listen to the show, you win a prize, or you
get entertained and informed. Seven one three two seven ninety.
If you know the name of Buttweiser's new national TV spot,
which I told you half an hour ago, and we'll

(01:19:24):
send you out there, get your information and get you
all hooked up. Game six obviously has generated the majority
of our interest here today. I did mention I was
over at the Texans facility as he's al Shire, the
latest Texans defensive player to play his way into earning
a contract extension, a lucrative one. It was interesting an

(01:19:45):
article written in The Athletic in recent days about the
Texans' procedures on putting their defense together and keeping it together.
We've talked about both sides in this article kind of
laid out both sides, and I actually meant in this
I think for the first time when they signed Derek
Stingley Junior last year, they don't seem like they pay

(01:20:07):
a whole lot of attention to the rest of the marketplace.
This is what we think where we should be paying
you and we're going to I mean, yeah, it's gonna
make you the highest paid player at your position, but
we're not working with the agent and saying, well, this
guy just signed for twenty nine point sixty seven million,
so we're happy to give you twenty nine point seven.
Now they just give him thirty or thirty one and

(01:20:29):
move on. And like Will Anderson Junior, could they have
given him forty eight, he would have been the highest
paid non quarterback in NFL history. Could have given him
forty nine, he got fifty a disease the same thing.
I think that they do this because this is how
they want to do things. And I brought up that
article because you know some of the anonymous quotes, but
from personnel executives, et cetera. They're pretty interesting because they

(01:20:53):
say it in a way that it's kind of hard
to believe from them. It's easy to believe from us,
but they say it like I just don't think the
textan care. They're not really setting the market. This is
what they're setting a market. It's not necessarily the next
guy has to beat that, but it's kind of how
things work out, these short term deals also that they
keep making and each guy's getting more money than anybody

(01:21:14):
else ever has. We can't have fifteen guys on your
team being the highest paid player at their position on
one team. It's it's not sustainable, is the other point
that was made. Appreciate you can appreciate from Afar how
the Texans operate, and we've talked to you about how
clearly this is very As much as it sometimes seems
team friendly, it's player friendly too. They want to be here,

(01:21:37):
They want to sign these short term deals. They want
to take the Texans over market money, even sometimes when
it's on the short term. Because everyone seems awfully happy.
Granted at their presser, yes they're very happy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:48):
I get.

Speaker 7 (01:21:50):
Get it.

Speaker 3 (01:21:50):
I know what people are gonna say, but it doesn't
seem sustainable.

Speaker 1 (01:21:55):
And I laid it out yesterday.

Speaker 3 (01:21:57):
This off season, you pretty much knew you're gonna to
make Aziz I'll shire, you know, a deal that makes
him happy, rather than have him play in the final year.
And you pretty much knew three years into Will Anderson's
career it's time he's played at an unbelievable level. He's
the leader of our defense. He's everything we want in
a Texans player. It's time to give him a big, fat,
you're the best player in the league. Contract. Well, next year,

(01:22:21):
CJ's not getting done this year. I brought up Bullock
and Kamari Laster obviously for obvious reasons, and because of
what you've done with Daniel Hunter. Are you now letting
him for the first time play into the final year
of his contract. He's not doing that this year because
you've extended him again, but it's a short term deal.
Twenty twenty seven would otherwise be his final year. Almost

(01:22:42):
nobody's about to be out of contract. Defensively, he is,
and with all those other commitments, then you definitely are
starting to look at can they really put enough void
years in it and do enough restructures and keep doing
what they're doing and not lose defensive greatness individually?

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):
So far they haven't.

Speaker 3 (01:23:01):
Nobody that's played unbelievable defense for the Texans is now
playing for somebody else.

Speaker 7 (01:23:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
I look, this is what was so bitter about the
defeat last year to the Patriots. It will be what
is so bitter should they come up short this year
because this group that they've got put together. You just
say this all the time, because we've done this show,
as you mentioned, for nearly ten years now. We would
talk about this all the time, back when Russell Wilson

(01:23:29):
was not only still in Seattle but also effective for Seattle.

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
It's been that long. Yeah, So where'd you say?

Speaker 8 (01:23:35):
It was?

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
Seattle? So Seahawks Nation got.

Speaker 8 (01:23:38):
It whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:23:41):
Broncos Nation, Hey Giants Nation, Hey NFL television studio network
Nation could be coming to a network near you.

Speaker 2 (01:23:50):
That's just a little bit too much insufferable for me,
But I digress. What was the biggest reason why the
Seahawks were able to get that success tests done? Because
that amazing defense coincided with him being on his rookie deal.
Now things are done differently now and Nick Cassario's example
or exhibit A of this. But you're not going to

(01:24:12):
be able to keep everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
You're just not.

Speaker 2 (01:24:14):
So just go ahead and win it now. Win it
this year, twenty six, that's the year to do it.

Speaker 3 (01:24:20):
So disease that talked about a few things, and the
previous question before I asked mine was about all the
stuff he's gone through while he's been here. He actually,
you know, I think most people know his backstory family wise,
a single mother, eight kids, was homeless at a time,
undrafted player to where he is today. And then you
tack onto that his time here in Houston, which the
name Trevor Lawrence was said by as he's all Shire today.

(01:24:42):
Because obviously at that point the question had a listed
in talking about you know, the downtimes here, people attacking
his character while he was here, and I had said
so clearly, your time here wasn't necessarily smooth. But when
you think back to when you first signed here so
you could reunite with Tamiko Ryans, I assure you imagine
and things would go well here. But did you think

(01:25:03):
they would go as well as they have for you
individually and for the team. And I phrased it exactly
that way, and he said yes and no. He said yes,
I did think things would go well. I thought things
would work out. I obviously felt like things would be
We'd be a really good team, we'd really really good defense,
and I love what we've done. But the no is
more about I think we could have won a super

(01:25:24):
Bowl already. Yeah, I feel like we were there, and
I'm disappointed. I think he used that word, but this
is the gist of what he said. That was the
no part because it has gone extremely well, but he's
in the locker room every day. He walked off the
field the last two postseasons in disappointment and discussed because
he thinks they've been good enough to win the super
Bowl already, but they haven't.

Speaker 1 (01:25:45):
And that's on them.

Speaker 2 (01:25:47):
Well, you know one, and it's so obvious only one
team does it every year, so there's gonna be a
whole lot of disappointment.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
That's just how sports work. But when you are.

Speaker 2 (01:25:57):
League altering on your side of the ball, I mean,
I think that's that's not too strong of.

Speaker 1 (01:26:02):
A term to use.

Speaker 2 (01:26:03):
Like you you had to game plan for this defense
every week. You might not have had a game plan
for the offense. But I know, I know what you're saying,
like you have to game plan for every day.

Speaker 3 (01:26:13):
No, no, I'm trying to picture which team I wanted
to say that said, how come they didn't game plan
for The Texans defense absolutely destroyed them that afternoon, the Bills,
I mean, Josh Allen miracle worker in that it was
still a game when they had the ball the last
time at the end of the game, in the fourth quarter,
and because you're right, it was like they didn't realize,

(01:26:35):
we don't know how to stop the pass rush.

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
I think I'm biased because I was there that night,
and not only there, I was like in the crowd,
I wasn't like in the press box in that you know,
very no cheering, well, and it's just so quiet, well and.

Speaker 1 (01:26:49):
I was like, they're gonna kill him. They're gonna kill
this guy.

Speaker 3 (01:26:52):
Just I told you about that. Will and Anderson event
over to Camp Hope this past week. He was asked
by the moderator Mark Vandermere, Oh my goodness, to just
in his mind, what stands out to you over the
last year or your time here, games or plays you've
made or whatever. The first thing he brought up was
after his first game. He said, the Bills game. For

(01:27:13):
all the same reasons you're saying it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:14):
What stands out to you? Will the dight you nearly murdered,
Josh Allen? Is that how you said it? Very much
like that rocking roll you kill them?

Speaker 1 (01:27:24):
Love you, Mark.

Speaker 3 (01:27:27):
That's good stuff, No really good stuff from them. And
obviously there's still work to do. Guys are around the facility.
Got a chance to say hello to Davis Mills and
a few other players. They're working out. Phase one of
the off season for them began on the twentieth. Mini
camps for teams began today Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Speaker 1 (01:27:45):
Mini camps for them.

Speaker 3 (01:27:46):
The Texans Mini Camp will take place next weekend and
then they'll be a little bit deeper into their already
for their on field portion of the off season program,
all while we wait and see how things play out
with the Rockets and Thunder, and then the Rockets and Spurs,
and then the Rockets and.

Speaker 1 (01:28:04):
Magic in the NBA Finals.

Speaker 2 (01:28:07):
A rematch of nineteen ninety five, thirty plus years later.

Speaker 3 (01:28:11):
Maybe so a few more things on those two things,
specifically the Rockets and your Astros line up. For the Astros,
it's a pretty familiar one at the top in support
they hope of Mike Burrows.

Speaker 1 (01:28:21):
We'll give that to you next.

Speaker 5 (01:28:25):
The eight on Sports Talk seven nineties.

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
It's your favorite Journey song? No, yeah, what is it?

Speaker 2 (01:28:32):
Something else that doesn't sound like you're even a fan
of the band. You hate this because of two thousand
and five, don't you? This is the White Sox might song.

Speaker 1 (01:28:42):
That's why I hate it.

Speaker 3 (01:28:45):
This is the song that everybody likes at the concert
because they get to get into it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:50):
You know, they don't even say the name of the
song until like three or four minutes, and I.

Speaker 1 (01:28:53):
Just thinking, what's this called again? I'll say itsh I
know it. See you this d the well. I was
about say, do you hate this?

Speaker 2 (01:28:59):
Because it's so stated with one of the worst endings
in television history. No, no, okay, so Josh.

Speaker 1 (01:29:05):
The other day I saw this, who is the creator again?
David Chase? David Chase?

Speaker 2 (01:29:11):
Okay, he actually showed the exed out part on the
script and it was not what everybody's Oh, well, they
definitely killed Tony spoiler alert, which isn't even a spoiler because.

Speaker 1 (01:29:24):
That's not what happened.

Speaker 2 (01:29:25):
What so to scram goes the black and everybody thinks
that he gets killed, he gets whacked.

Speaker 1 (01:29:31):
Maybe they just ordered some bad food.

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):
But he somebody posted the script and it's like exed
out and written in pen. Should we cut this on
the original script? And it's like a super duper happy ending. Ah,
They're just having a nice little meal as a family.
And I think that's why, in hindsight, he chose to

(01:29:54):
go with just cutting it off, because people have talked
about it for whatever twenty years now.

Speaker 12 (01:29:59):
It's Schrodingers cat, right, Tony's both alive and dead at
one time, and remember the cat in that episode following
them all around. That's what I think is brilliant about
is if you want to think Tony's alive, he is,
you want to think he got shot there he did,
which he did get shot.

Speaker 3 (01:30:13):
But remember the cat, the cat following him around?

Speaker 1 (01:30:16):
Josh, how many times have you watched The show Man?
There's too many to the list.

Speaker 3 (01:30:20):
Okay, the answer is not Tony. Who's your favorite character?
Oh man, Uncle Junior, I can't say. I can't even
believe that's that's to me. That's why a show like
this can be so awesome. It might have taken me
ten answers to get to Uncle Junior. Not that there's
a wrong answer, I'm just saying that shows you how

(01:30:41):
much is going on in this long running show.

Speaker 2 (01:30:44):
What if I told you I couldn't say the name
of my favorite Now you're a weak loser.

Speaker 1 (01:30:49):
I'm just being a juveniles one.

Speaker 3 (01:30:50):
I mean god, there's so many every like if you
he wasn't Junior not involved in the Christopher's intervention, almost
everybody in that scene.

Speaker 1 (01:30:58):
I would have said, before him, who kills what's her face? Adriana?
Yeah it's Cilio. I like him. What about Polly because
he's so business like about it? Though, well they all
were when they were doing that. But he's driving her
to kill her and he's like it's gonna be okay.
So many good ones he's a strong kid. Yeah, like

(01:31:19):
Christopher's gonna be fine.

Speaker 3 (01:31:21):
I was not at all surprised that Josh didn't say
big kitty cat.

Speaker 8 (01:31:25):
That was.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
Why do you say that? Because I know he wouldn't
be smart the name of the character.

Speaker 5 (01:31:33):
Have to call him sal by his legal of.

Speaker 1 (01:31:35):
Course that's true. What about the guy who's married to Jenny.

Speaker 12 (01:31:39):
Oh Johnny, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
Don't make cracks about her. You didn't like that. I'm
so mad he passed away in real life.

Speaker 3 (01:31:49):
How about when Tony was driving by the way because
he was in it?

Speaker 1 (01:31:54):
Yes, well, he turned what a jerk.

Speaker 2 (01:31:58):
He had a very good analogy in that film about
what you don't do unless you're gonna do something else.

Speaker 3 (01:32:04):
And probably not mentioned, but very high on most people's
lists was Phil l mister Leotardo.

Speaker 1 (01:32:11):
Yeah, good character.

Speaker 3 (01:32:13):
I don't know how that particular actor ever found his
way to playing that character and everything he was.

Speaker 2 (01:32:18):
Ever everything ever. I mean, it's just the same group
of guys.

Speaker 3 (01:32:22):
Did you see the movie with Phillyotato and Joe Pesci? Yes,
which one all of them? You know, the one where
he killed him?

Speaker 4 (01:32:29):
Huh?

Speaker 3 (01:32:29):
Which one the other day, the one where he hit
him with a baseball bat. Oh yeah, which one the
other day I saw somebody went, you know the one
where the blood was spurting out of his head.

Speaker 8 (01:32:39):
Huh?

Speaker 1 (01:32:39):
Which one? Robert De Niro's house and casino, and there's
this big Sharon Stone was going through the closet.

Speaker 2 (01:32:45):
Going through the Closet's a way to put it when
she was crashing out.

Speaker 1 (01:32:49):
Uh huh? Yes, his house? What high as a kite.
He did a bad job that day. Man, that day. Yeah,
he got taken advantage of. She was around on him
with James Woods. He never should have married her. He
was calling her at the wedding.

Speaker 3 (01:33:06):
He just wanted his Aquaman tickets. I just want to say,
he just wanted his tickets from Johnny and Turtle.

Speaker 5 (01:33:12):
Leave them alone.

Speaker 3 (01:33:16):
Same thing with James Woods. All Right, we've got a roll,
kind of a slime ball. I'll take it.

Speaker 1 (01:33:22):
He's actually one of the best dudes ever too, in
real life. I think so. By the way, I think
the answer is any way you want it. That's your
favorite Journey song? So hi tempo the song. I mean,
there's too many ballads. I don't want to pick a ballad.
You don't want to pick a ballad, even though those
are better.

Speaker 2 (01:33:40):
Yeah, probably pretty much what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:33:43):
Jonathan Kane is so disappointed in you. Do you know
who that is? He's the Is he the guy air
keyboarding in.

Speaker 2 (01:33:49):
The he's real keyboarding in that he plays the piano
and wrote them all?

Speaker 1 (01:33:56):
Okay, great, he's probably disappointed.

Speaker 7 (01:33:58):
You.

Speaker 2 (01:33:58):
Guy that's an impressionist that they found on freaking YouTube
is better than Steve Perry is the vocalist.

Speaker 1 (01:34:03):
I'll tell I'll say one thing.

Speaker 3 (01:34:05):
I think the new guy they found on YouTube is
better than Steve Perry?

Speaker 1 (01:34:09):
Is that word for word what you said? No, I
don't what happened in the last segment of the show.
It basically is no, it is at five o'clock. We
switched to Astros. Come on, man, we got thirty minutes
left in the real show.

Speaker 2 (01:34:23):
How come like Journey and the movies, their songs are
everywhere and obviously this television program that got a sidetracked,
and the sing alongs at Astros games very popular. Carson
knows what's up, he knows your Journey is okay, real quick?

Speaker 7 (01:34:40):
Are you?

Speaker 1 (01:34:41):
Are you seeing this narrative?

Speaker 2 (01:34:42):
And I was again not to keep talking about the
radio appearance I made earlier today in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 (01:34:48):
Just make it about you. That's what a radio host do.

Speaker 3 (01:34:50):
Well, what's what we're all here for is to hear
my stories about me. No, which has just let me
know I could have taken the segment off.

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
The They asked me this question point blank with the
sh straight face, and they believe.

Speaker 1 (01:35:01):
Well Cappy believed it.

Speaker 2 (01:35:03):
That he thinks, at least for the duration of this series,
because of the way the Lakers play defense, that the
Rockets are better without KD on the floor. Think about
that better without KD on the floor. Now, I get
what you know. He's saying, the Lakers double team. He
can't fight through it. The Rockets offense bogs down because

(01:35:26):
everybody's watching KD to make you know, the make something
happen on that end of the floor.

Speaker 1 (01:35:31):
D D d D.

Speaker 2 (01:35:32):
It hasn't really mattered because Kdie has not been able
to answer the bell. But I just if you told me, hey,
he's available tonight, he's playing. I'm sorry, but that's in
no planet. Does that not give the Rockets a better
chance to win Game six versus if he was not available?

Speaker 1 (01:35:50):
I'm sorry, it just doesn't.

Speaker 3 (01:35:51):
Yeah, free and easy as an angle the ability to
get a shot pretty much whenever you want it as
an angle, He's also not himself. He's not also not
one hundred percent. He's also played in a series to
the two and forty one minutes in a game they
did not win. So there's a lot of factors that
go into it. And where they were at the beginning
of the series is different than where they are now,
and the same can be true about the Lakers. The

(01:36:13):
Lakers have now played forty eight minutes of this series
with Austin Reeves. They're about to play forty eight more
minutes of this series with Austin Reeves available, and it's
gonna make a difference, made a huge difference.

Speaker 1 (01:36:24):
I mean, I think great the first quarter.

Speaker 3 (01:36:26):
I think the Rockets could hold Luke Canard to one
point if Austin Reeves wasn't playing, But I doubt it.

Speaker 2 (01:36:31):
You did such a good job of eloquently placing why
he should We should all have expected him to do
what he did in Games one and two. I mean,
this is the best three point shoot in the league,
one of the best. Da da da da. He sucks,
and he's finally being exposed for that fact. This is
scientific basketball analysis from a long time NBA observer and broadcaster,

(01:36:53):
Luke Kennard sucks and he should suck in a series
like this.

Speaker 3 (01:36:57):
I could be wrong, but I think this is right.
He will enter tonight's game having missed ten consecutive threes.

Speaker 2 (01:37:03):
Well, just because you said that, just now, he's gonna
hit ten tonight. Okay, swear good one watch it ten threes?

Speaker 1 (01:37:11):
You know what, buddy?

Speaker 2 (01:37:12):
Healed one time, hit like seven or eight against them
in the playoffs. Yeah, last season, all the way back
to last year.

Speaker 1 (01:37:19):
Better defensive team then.

Speaker 3 (01:37:20):
Now I would expect Austin Reeves is in the starting lineup,
So totally different angle to this game for Luke Canard,
how he's gonna be used, what they're expecting from him,
and if there's no nothing lingering from the comeback for
Austin Physically, he's not playing thirty three, thirty four to
thirty five minutes. He's playing forty unless foul trouble dictates otherwise.
Same thing for Lebron and we'll see what they do
with the rest of the rotation, but it's gonna be

(01:37:40):
pretty limited if foul trouble's not an issue, which it
actually turned out to be last game. Surprisingly, Tarry Easton
had those four fouls, and I thought that was going
to be a huge negative for the Rockets, but they
played their way right through it, no issue whatsoever. Of
held the Lakers under one hundred twice. The Lakers have
held the Rockets under one hundred three times, obviously in
one of those games. It's one most recent game ninety

(01:38:02):
nine ninety three, four thirty. Chandler Rome visits live next.

Speaker 5 (01:38:09):
The A on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:38:13):
Y as promised each and every Friday, sometime around four
thirty five o'clock, we have Channeler Roam of the athletic calling. Sometimes,
like this week, we have him twice one week, which
is actually my favorite thing to do. You know what, Chandler,
just start doubling up. We'll have you on on Mondays
and Fridays from here on out. Now, what a weird

(01:38:34):
day that was yesterday for these astros and what is
continually a weirder and weirder season.

Speaker 13 (01:38:40):
Yeah, I'm just stunned you guys could fit me in today.
I know there was a huge game tonight. I'm sure
the ambassador is super nervous. Hope the charter flight made
it from Italy. Okay, hope he gets his court side
seats and everything's good or.

Speaker 2 (01:38:53):
All rocket fans hope the best is he still praying
for Victor is happening a couple.

Speaker 3 (01:39:02):
Of series away from Rockets verse bursts, so just wait.

Speaker 13 (01:39:05):
Okay, okay, Well you can go back to Italy between that.

Speaker 7 (01:39:08):
Yeah, yesterday it was weird. Just would not have thought
the lineup that they ran out there.

Speaker 13 (01:39:14):
Playing Game two would have done what it did. But
that's why you play the game. That's why baseball is great. Yeah,
it's just kind of the same story, different verse. This
is a team that is consistently shown it has one
of the better offenses in baseball, and if by have
reconceivable metric, has one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball.
So when those two things happen, anything can happen. And look,

(01:39:39):
there's some things you can look at with the pitching
staff that you know will regress a little bit to
more of a normal mean.

Speaker 7 (01:39:45):
Right, Like, they have the second highest bad up.

Speaker 13 (01:39:48):
In the sport right now, and it's an unsustainably high
bab up, which shows that there is some misfortune in
the contact that they are allowing. But they've got to
stop walking guys. It's just I don't how much simpler
to put it. They walked fifteen guys yesterday in a doubleheader.

Speaker 7 (01:40:04):
That just can't happen. And you know, they need to be.

Speaker 13 (01:40:08):
Around the strike zone more. They need to, you know,
have quicker, more efficient innings, and they need to have
their starters get deeper into games to protect this bullpen.
So you know, look, it's a new month. Maybe starting
a new and playing a team in Boston that's a
bigger mess than they are will help. But yeah, it
just yesterday kind of epitomized everything this team is.

Speaker 3 (01:40:29):
Yeah, it's all been about how these games really start
pitching wise, And curious about two of the pitchers who
ended up going or three of them actually, Peter Lambert,
Lance mccullor's junior, and Brian A. Bray, who all pitched
yesterday to varying degrees of success. So curious what you
think we now might know about Lambert three starts in
what do you think lies ahead for Lance mccullor's junior,

(01:40:52):
An interesting day for him and that it was a
successful one, although there were maybe some questions about the
stuff that he had, and Brian and Bray basically never pitches.
He pitched twice now in the last thirteen days. Yesterday
was one of those appearances. Put four runners on base,
one of them scored. He's then struck out the final
two batters of the inning. Kind of where things stand with.

Speaker 13 (01:41:11):
Him, Yeah, I guess we'll start with them, Bray You.
Essentially they're running a seven man bullten right now because
they don't feel comfortable pitching him in any game that's
remotely close. And when you have one of the highest
scoring offenses in baseball, when you have one of the
worst pitching stats in baseball, that means there's not going
to be a ton of blowout games, right They score
a lot of runs and they give up a lot

(01:41:31):
of runs, so there's not a ton of places to
use him. So in the absence of having close games,
if they can put it, in the absence of having
blow up games, they can put him in. Like they
want to stay away from him, and there's really no solution,
you know, other than they've got to pitch him when
they can find spots for him and just hope it
gets better. I know that's not the answer everyone wants

(01:41:54):
to hear, but it's just kind of the it's kind
of the cards they've been dealt mccullor's you know, I
I thought it was interesting to hear him talk about
his stuff after the game, just basically saying that, you know,
he saw the lesser velo stuff had better just profile
and shape and pitch movement, and he was like, you
know what, if it has this much run, if it
has this much movement.

Speaker 7 (01:42:13):
Then I'm gonna throw it. I'm gonna throw less velocity.

Speaker 13 (01:42:17):
I do think, you know, the curveball he threw right
at his season average and it was one of the
best curveballs he's had all year. Got eleven whiffs on
eighteen swings. I believe that was a good sign. They
need him to just keep trying to get deep into games,
be efficient, be around the strike zone, Lee night the walks,
and you know, he's a veteran. He knows how to pitch.

(01:42:38):
It's just a matter of putting it all together. And
then Peter Lambert, you know, there's something about it. He's
just kind of a competitor. He's just kind of you know,
I know it's a cliche to say, but when he's
on the mound, just it seems like nothing really phases him.
You know, he walks a couple of guys. He's able
to get out of jams like it's just he's kind
of a throwback in terms of just kind of a
gritty competitor. Didn't miss as many bats yesterday as we

(01:43:00):
saw in his first two starts, but still was able to,
you know, get them into the fifth inning.

Speaker 7 (01:43:05):
I think Joe A.

Speaker 13 (01:43:05):
Spotto was really going for the win there, pulling him
at ninety one pitches. But you know, look, they need
any sort of reliable semblance of starting pitching they can get.
So even if I were to give you bad reports
on both of those guys, it's not like they have
anywhere else to turn it.

Speaker 2 (01:43:19):
Talking to Chandler Rome with the Athletic here on Sports
Talk seven ninety Astros start in that three game set
in Boston tonight at Fenway.

Speaker 1 (01:43:26):
You are there.

Speaker 2 (01:43:28):
Do you ever walk into that place and not think
I have the coolest job in the world.

Speaker 7 (01:43:33):
Yeah, no, it really kind of it.

Speaker 13 (01:43:35):
Really, you know, rocks you a little bit to walk
in here and just understand that you know this is
coming away. It beats working for a living.

Speaker 7 (01:43:41):
I'll say that it does be working for a living.

Speaker 2 (01:43:43):
Well and you know, that is a place that traditionally,
I think Jordan Alvarez has loved. Not that there's not
a ton of major league stadiums he doesn't love hitting in,
but what he has done his resume he put together
for the March April Player of the Month award, I mean,
you can't. I was telling Wax earlier it sucks that
he's basically wasting these mammoth numbers right now.

Speaker 13 (01:44:07):
Yeah, I don't want to say waste, but it does
feel like we're not taught. It feels like he's being
overshadowed yet everything else that is wrong with this team,
and it feels what we're talking about the starting I mean,
it's just like this interview right like we didn't bring
him up till what the fourth question because we're talking
about the pitching. We're talking about the injuries, and those
are bigger stories. But yeah, Jordan Alvarez is having a
legendary run here.

Speaker 7 (01:44:28):
He's I haven't looked at.

Speaker 13 (01:44:29):
Who's in competition for the Player of the Month honors,
but I can't imagine it's anyone that has any numbers
approaching his. You know, and again, I think the thing
I will always say about Alvarez when I'm asked about him,
is you know he all the home runs are obviously.

Speaker 7 (01:44:43):
What everyone loves.

Speaker 13 (01:44:44):
They love watching Hi hit the ball very far, but
like just the overall hitter that he is, just his
his own judgment, his plate discipplined, he doesn't strike out,
he doesn't swing and miss, he doesn't chase. He is
as a complete hitter as you will find anywhere. And
I think that gets Law a little bit sometimes in
all the big power that he has and all the
home runs that he is.

Speaker 2 (01:45:05):
Talking to Chandler Rome with the Athletic here on Sports
Talk seven ninety and yeah, it's he is a complete hitter.
It's not just about the home runs. Like you mentioned
injury situation. We were talking about this earlier. You know,
if he wasn't in the lineup, how much worse it
could be. And potentially you're talking about what a six
win team maybe and you don't have a manager and

(01:45:26):
a general manager. That was the scenario that wex painted.
One of the names you mentioned, you know, trying to
get him back, and a guy that I think will
make a huge difference but also kind of cost some
headaches is Jeremy Pania.

Speaker 1 (01:45:40):
How much.

Speaker 2 (01:45:41):
First of all, how much closer are we to seeing
him and how much does he in particular do you
think help with some of the problems they're dealing with
right now.

Speaker 7 (01:45:50):
Well, it's interesting.

Speaker 13 (01:45:51):
So he was sprinting today in less field at spend
Way before the game. He's close to going on and
rehab assignment. I would imagine maybe after the Dog your series,
maybe you see him in Cincinnati next weekend. I would
say that's maybe a soft target for them. But the
interesting thing is, like, look, he'll help the lineup, Don't
get me wrong, Like he will. He's going to help.

(01:46:11):
He's going to help lineup construction. You know, he can
hit lead off. Corea won't have to hit lead off.
It'll it'll help.

Speaker 7 (01:46:15):
But the interesting thing.

Speaker 13 (01:46:17):
Is like when he comes back, we're going to just
relitigate the Escoc Paradus infield surplus conversation because you know,
for me, if I look at their problems right now,
like they have an entire outfield on the injured list
aside from Cam Smith, and they're not going to play
Gorden Alvarez in left field. He's on pace to play
forty games total this year in left field. So when

(01:46:38):
pain it comes back. That just moves the Estoc Paradis
to the bench and not the Estoc Paradis has been
some world beater this year, but but he's been a
I mean, he's been better of late. So yes, getting
Jeremy Paynia back will help, But at the same time,
you're going to be removing Estoc Paradus from the equation,
so it'll help, But I don't think it'll help maybe
as much as people think it will. If you know,

(01:47:00):
if they can't find a way to make this all
work and to get all these guys in the lineup
at the same time.

Speaker 3 (01:47:05):
Would really be a shame. He had five hits yesterday
and the double header. I do like you think he's
coming around a little bit, and that certainly lengths in
the lineup that essentially is a five person lineup most days.
The bottom four hitters in the order are usually a
different group, but likely a step back from those that
are ahead of them. Today's lineup is no different, but
they play against the team that they're undefeated against this year.

(01:47:25):
The Astros are nine and twenty against everybody else, the
three to zero against the Red Sox. You know anything
about tonight's starter on the Red Sox we can share
with our listeners when we get into the on Deck Show.

Speaker 1 (01:47:35):
Besides, he's huge.

Speaker 7 (01:47:37):
I have no idea truly.

Speaker 13 (01:47:40):
I mean, he's his big league debut, which I think
it's either going to go really really good or really
really bad. Like big league debuts are never like in
the middle. You never see a big league debut where
it's like, oh, he went, he went five innings and gave.

Speaker 7 (01:47:51):
Up three runs, like it was just okay.

Speaker 13 (01:47:53):
Like it's either he's gonna go seven scoreless or they're
going to chase him after two innings. And Joe spot
Atal before the game actually and he said, you know,
we have to remember that this is his major league debut,
and like essentially saying without saying, like we need to
put the pressure on him, like we need to make
him throw strikes, we need to intimidate him, like we
need to control the tempo and the aggression of the

(01:48:13):
at bat. So watch them, watch for them to do that,
because I mean I was talking about it with some
some Red Sox people earlier, like this is I did
not realize until we got here that this is the
first home game that they will play since Alex Korra
and the four coaches, and the five coaches were dismissed,
so there's already all that drama going around. This is
the first home game since that. And oh, by the way,

(01:48:34):
you have this kid making his big league debut on
the mound. So it's one of these things that could
be a recipe for a disaster for the Red Sox
and a good thing for the Astros. But again, like
we talked about, I mean Dustin Harris Stroman three rounds yesterday,
so who knows what could happen in based off.

Speaker 3 (01:48:49):
Jake Bennett makes his major league debut against the Astros
this evening right here on Sports Talk seven nine and Taylor,
appreciate the great work you do right there in the
athletic and the even better work you do right here
on this program, not to mention the you do on
your own podcast with Tyler.

Speaker 7 (01:49:02):
All right, thanks guys, he's out.

Speaker 1 (01:49:05):
He is already into his weekend. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (01:49:09):
The food there, by the way, Italian food on the
North end of Boston and Boston highly underrated it out.

Speaker 1 (01:49:16):
Speaking of the sopranos.

Speaker 2 (01:49:18):
All right, final segment of the regular show coming up next.

Speaker 1 (01:49:23):
We have regular tickets to give away.

Speaker 3 (01:49:24):
In the final segment of the week to the Dave
Matthews Band concert coming up in a week, so stay tuned.

Speaker 5 (01:49:33):
The eighteen leatherback in the eighteen.

Speaker 3 (01:49:36):
Josh Shortan, Adam Clanton, Jay Farrow, and Adam Wexler your
host today, all of us have gotten equal airtime over
the course of the last couple of hours. We got
Astros on deck for you coming up in just a
few minutes. The two of us will handle that for you.
We'll get you into Astros and Red Sox after that
and a little bit later on tonight, those of you
listening on Sports Talk seven to ninety with the Astros
as it ends, you can join the coverage of Rockets

(01:49:57):
Lakers Game six. We'll end this segment their final predictions
on that will give away the remaining pairs of tickets
we have to see Dave Matthews Band. Believe we have
three pairs left. They're playing Woodland's Pavilion a week from
to night, May eighth at the Woodlands Pavilion. Tickets are
on sale now. Ticketmaster dot Com are winners our our listeners.
If you listen to the show, you know the answers
to the questions we ask if you were listening very

(01:50:19):
specifically to the longest segment of the show that had
almost nothing to do with sports, you'll know the answer
to this question. We got sidetracked because we heard a
bump music from a band called Journey that sent us
into obviously a conversation about a long running home box
office program called The Sopranos. And I said, this can't

(01:50:42):
be your answer, but who's your favorite character?

Speaker 1 (01:50:46):
I asked our producer Josh who his favorite character was.

Speaker 3 (01:50:49):
The answer that he gave is the answer I'm looking
for at seven one three two one two five seven
ninety seven one three two one two five seven ninety
As soon as he gave that answer, which is prized
me a great deal, I started rattling off all these
other characters I thought he might have named, but didn't.
He did not say Polly. He definitely didn't say either

(01:51:10):
of Tony's kids. Nobody would say that, even though Meadow
was fine. He didn't say the Missus. And your last
hint is he didn't say any of the female characters
on The Sopranos. It was somebody else who is Josh
Jordan's favorite cast member favorite character on The Sopranos? And
as heard earlier here on today's edition of The A

(01:51:32):
Team and.

Speaker 8 (01:51:34):
Yees.

Speaker 1 (01:51:34):
So it's nobody who had a kitty cat in part
of their name. Nobody had that in their names. Sal.
It's not Sal. It's not Sal. It's also not the
guy that Flynn caught. Okay, are you done? Uh?

Speaker 3 (01:51:49):
It's not the guy who threatened Oh, what's the actress's name?
Drove her out into the woods and threatened her. She
was a Carl saleswoman, but she had gotten with Tony
and it needed to end and she needed Gloria.

Speaker 1 (01:52:03):
It's not Glorious.

Speaker 3 (01:52:04):
It's not the character who threatened her. Any others, I mean,
there's a few left for you to guess. That's kind
of the point I'm telling you. Are there any others
you'd like to reveal? Are not the answer? While we're
still on the air for this. There's a lot of
good options, So they're all out there for you. But
they already know the answer because they were listening.

Speaker 2 (01:52:21):
Only four teams out of one hundred and sixty in
NBA history have ever even forced a game seven after
being down oh three.

Speaker 3 (01:52:31):
Yes, sixteen have forced what the Rockets did with their
last win. They would become the fifth to force ACE
Game seven if they win again tonight, and they would
obviously then become the first ever to complete the four
consecutive victories in a seven game series in the NBA
postseason after.

Speaker 1 (01:52:48):
Losing the first three games. And the other thing, they
have work to do. We're not talking about game seven.

Speaker 2 (01:52:52):
That's right, nobody's packing their bags. The other thing I
wanted to get great delivery that we haven't talked just
the worst about is I know you're matre.

Speaker 3 (01:53:02):
We need three winners. So if you want to say
someone who's not senior, then callin.

Speaker 2 (01:53:08):
Oh my gosh, you were standing there when Albern Shingun
was asked about specifically emy Udoka's coaching, how.

Speaker 3 (01:53:18):
Has em helped keep you guys kind of focused in
on this series as it's unfolded, And yeah, I was there.

Speaker 2 (01:53:23):
Did he say that he's an awful head coach who's
unimaginative and the chemistry is terrible, and he does kickboxing
and boxing boxing with Fred van Vliet too much, and
he's too hard on everything you've said, and ross mean
and says nasty things and calls Lebron bad name.

Speaker 1 (01:53:44):
None of that, None of that.

Speaker 3 (01:53:45):
What did he say a very respectful answer about how
he's done things to help this team perform the.

Speaker 1 (01:53:50):
Way they have.

Speaker 3 (01:53:51):
Interesting and honestly, I said it at the very beginning
of the show, and I think the players tend to agree.

Speaker 1 (01:53:55):
I'm taking it from their lead.

Speaker 3 (01:53:57):
I don't think they feel like they've played a whole
lot differently from the beginning of the series to where
they are today.

Speaker 1 (01:54:02):
The shots just start falling and.

Speaker 2 (01:54:04):
They say that even though they just scored ninety nine points,
they've out played us in every facet of the game
except for shot making.

Speaker 1 (01:54:11):
I'm like, or we've outplayed them. That is the reason
why it was true.

Speaker 3 (01:54:14):
Though it was, it just sounds bad three hammer them
on the boards. The more the series has gone on,
the less of that they've done.

Speaker 1 (01:54:21):
I think the more they've won, they need.

Speaker 3 (01:54:23):
To reverse that though, Like they beat the Lakers with
far less stress in the last game. If DeAndre eight
and personally with ten offensive rebounds doesn't give him that
many more second chances.

Speaker 2 (01:54:35):
Yeah, DeAndre Ayton's been like their Steven Adams light. Is
that a really good series? I do think it was.

Speaker 3 (01:54:41):
Unfortunately, he was ejected for what probably should have been
a flagrant one but he was also invisible in one
of the games.

Speaker 1 (01:54:47):
Maybe that will come to play. So you got it.

Speaker 3 (01:54:49):
You got a few seconds here before we transition into
Astros on deck.

Speaker 2 (01:54:52):
I said it would be close again, but they'd score more.
Ready for this, This is super duper hot. Okay, one
oh nine, one oh six Rockets reed Shepherd game winner.

Speaker 1 (01:55:04):
Out of a timeout. Uh huh, maybe not. Maybe I'll
take a time out just for fun.

Speaker 3 (01:55:09):
I think there will be the kind of basketball that
Rockets fans want to see tonight, so they get to
see more of it coming up on Sunday, But.

Speaker 1 (01:55:16):
Nothing more than that, I don't think.

Speaker 3 (01:55:20):
I think we will be back here with you with
your Rockets Sunday night. We'll have Astros tonight, tomorrow and
Sunday regardless, and we'll talk about the Astros and Red
Sox as we bring you the On Dick Show next